oh by gosh by golly....

December is an insane, mad person sprint of a month. It is not, in any way shape or form, a normally timed month. I know this because I don't have time for much. Like last week's post, there's no time for love, Dr. Jones. Straight to the nitty gritty.

Remember my cousin's cheeseball. Well, I made it and it's a total knockout. You should know about this cheeseball, you're going to want to be alone with it.

2 packages cream cheese (don't even think about getting reduced fat)
2 jars Kraft Olde English OR 1 tub Cheddar Wis-Pride spread*
5-6 ounces crumbled blue cheese or gorganzola
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
couple shakes of garlic salt



Combine everything in a bowl and beat together with an electric mixer. Divide cheese amalgam in half and shape into two balls. It was helpful to lightly spray my hands with olive oil spray before doing this. Roll each cheeseball in crushed nuts (I used pecans) or chopped, fresh herbs.



Wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least two hours before serving. I made mine the night before. I used one at my party and the other five days later. Both were delicious. Do it!

* Kraft Olde English was not at my grocery store. I improvised and used Wis-Pride. I figured, well, it's orange, so it must be the same thing. It was.



Hey cheeseball, meet your two new friends, red wine and vodka, you guys will be seeing a lot of each other this holiday season.

snap-petizers

As in snappy appetizers. Yes, I know, I’m the world’s biggest cheeseball. Speaking of cheeseballs, I am making one for my Christmas party on Saturday night. Apparently my cousin Jenny made this cheeseball for Thanksgiving and nobody could shut up about how good it was. They even went so far as to curse her name the next day when they mistakenly thought she had taken the cheeseball leftovers home with her. When she cleared up that rumor we forgave her. So anyways, I’m already taking up too much time. No time for witty banter this week kids, it’s crunch time. December is sort of beating the tar out of me right now. Does anyone else feel this way? It seems like about ten seconds ago, it was Thanksgiving and I was going to blog “over the weekend” or “early next week” about my stuffed mushrooms. Obviously, because I am a proven liar, “over the weekend” meant “definitely not this weekend” and “early next week” meant “probably not for two weeks” but anyways, I digress. It’s December 10th already! We’re into double digits and there’s no more time for dilly dallying: onward! To the appetizers!

These are two Sue Pithie classics that I am generously gifting upon ye. My mom has never met a savory appetizer she wasn’t able to conquer. I hope to continue this legacy for the next generation of party snackers. I’m telling you right now, if you make these, you will get compliments.

STUFFED MUSHROOMS

Two large packages white button mushrooms. (Baby Bellas would also work well)
One red bell pepper, diced
One small bunch scallions, chopped
1 ½ to 2 sleeves Ritz crackers (as with all recipes calling for Ritz, let me just tell you right now, there simply is no substitution)
½ - 1 stick butter, melted



Brush mushrooms off with a damp cloth. Snap out stems and set aside onto your cutting board. The intact caps can be set aside into a bowl. The caps that don’t make it, well they can join the stems. Heat a skillet over medium high heat and drizzle a bit of olive oil in. Coarsely chop your mushroom stems. Add the stems, along with the diced red pepper and chopped scallions to the sauté pan and cook a few minutes, until it smells fragrant and the mushrooms have purged a bit of liquid.



Dump the lot of this mixture into your Cuis’ Food Processor. Add the Ritz. Pulse mixture until it reassembles a stuffing-ish mixture. Return your skillet to the heat, lower the stove a bit, to medium and melt your butter. When the butter is melted, pour it over the stuff in your Cuis’, pulse some more. Until all the Ritz are chopped up well and there aren’t any large, identifiable half crackers floating around in there. Stuff your mushroom caps with the stuffing mixture (der). Bake at 375 for 15 minutes.



TOMATO, BASIL & FETA SALSA with PITA CHIPS



For the Chips:

One package large or small pita. This is a great thing to do with pitas that are too stale to eat. When you bake them up, they’re like a whole new beast.
Olive Oil
Sea Salt
Garlic Salt (optional)

For the “Salsa”

Tomatoes*
Fresh basil
Feta Cheese
Salt, pepper
Olive oil

*Any type tomato will do here. Since it’s winter, I use any good looking cherry tomatoes I find at the store and cut them into halves, or quarters, depending on their size. The last batch I picked up were gargantuan, so they got the quarter treatment.



One of the good things about this recipe is you can make a huge batch for a party or just a small amount for yourself. It gets tastier as it sits overnight in the fridge, but is also great immediately after you make it. It’s a very forgiving and versatile, like my long grey sweater, that’s why I like it. I also whip this up a lot in the summer as a side dish, sometimes adding diced purple onion.

Preheat oven to 350. Cut your pitas into triangles. The option here is to split them, to make thin chips, or leave them together. Your call. My mom likes them thicker and therefore leaves them together, I like to split them so they’re lighter and you can make more of them. Arrange cut pitas on baking sheet. Pour a palm full of olive oil into your hand and rub both hands together. Using your hands distribute the oil over the pita slices. Repeat if necessary. I don’t like mine too oily, so I go light. My mother makes her pita chips not with olive oil, but with melted butter, because well, she’s trying to kill us all. Sprinkle with sea salt and garlic salt. Bake for 15 minutes, flipping half way through.



Meanwhile, rinse your tomatoes and slice into halves or quarters. If using full size tomatoes, cut into a chunky dice. Chiffonade a couple handfuls of basil. To do this, take a few leaves at a time and roll them up, then cut thin, vertical slices across your rolled up leaves. The result is delicate ribbon-y threads of basil that look cute. Add basil to tomatoes, and add feta. Drizzle with olive oil, add salt and pepper and stir everything together. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Serve with pita chips. Open your ears to hear the compliments, and try not to pull a muscle patting yourself on the back!

FENNEL SAUSAGE and POTATO SOUP

Please do not be alarmed that the word “sausage” is in the title of this soup. Honestly when trying to name this mish mash of a soup that I made up last week, I really did not want to include sausage in the title. There’s something about the words “sausage soup” that make me picture a gigantic bread loaf hollowed out and filled with baked potato, cheese and cheddar soup with carmelized kielbasa or something in it. Something that adds 7 pounds to my ass if I even look at it sideways, and something that if you eat the only words to describe your condition afterwards are “completely” and “destroyed.” The concept of sausage soup also reminds me of a certain menu item that would appear periodically at the unnamed American bar & grill where I used to sling food. That menu item was BLT soup and yes, it was just as disgusting as you are imagining right now. I mean BLTs: good; soup: good. BLT soup: NOT GOOD. Any soup with flecks of floating lettuce in it is just not okay with me. And if it’s okay with you I’d like you to keep that to yourself because I really like you and I don’t want that to change. It made me wonder how the cook who’s brainchild this recipe was could take two seemingly wonderful food items and by combining them together create something almost inherently evil. One day when he was preparing this culinary abomination he asked “Jess, you’re a vegetarian right?” to which I pishawed him and said “no” and he was like, “oh, well here, I want you to try the soup of the day.” “What is it?” “BLT soup” “Oh, um, honestly, I don’t really feel well right now and I just don’t think I can eat anything with bacon in it. Thanks though. It sounds so good.” I lied. I really didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings but I was not about to make smiley faces any yummy noises as I slurped down a nappy dish of the Worst Soup Ever Made by Man. So anyway, that’s the backstory on my aversion to soups with salted meats in them. Who’s hungry?

But sincerely though, even though I am not happy with the title of this soup per se, I don’t believe it would have come out quite as good if I had skipped the sausage. A nice browned meat can add a lot to the flavor of a soup, even bacon, just don’t combine it with wilted, wet lettuce and don’t let me think that maybe you may have included mayonnaise as one of your soup ingredients (ugh! I just got the chills when I typed that!!). Wow Jess, you are really doing a spectacular job of working up appetites over here. But honestly, I swear MY soup is good, and there’s no lettuce in it. And there never will be any lettuce in any soup that comes out of the Porky Test Kitchens. Lettuce has a place: in salads and on tacos, let’s keep it that way. So anyways though, focusing our attention back to the soup:

Olive oil

Two sweet Italian or fennel sausages*

One bag baby pearl onions**

Two cloves garlic, minced

Salt, pepper, crushed red pepper

2-3 tablespoons tomato paste

Splash of sherry vinegar

2 russet potatoes, diced

Chicken broth or stock, to cover

* The sausages I used in this soup were leftover from a package of Dom’s sausages from Dom’s Sausage Company in Malden. This place is amazing. Their meats are great and their prices are reasonable. My friend Michelle drives up there to stock up every few weeks and on her last visit she gifted me with some of these sweet, fennel sausages. I’m normally a hot sausage girl myself (hehehe- sorry) but these changed my mind. Ah-mazing.

**I purchased myself a satchel of the most adorable baby onion blend from where else? Trader Joes. They were a blend of baby purple, white and yellow onions and they were so great, because not only were they so cute, their flavor was wonderful. You could likewise use regular diced onions or the normal baby pearls, or even cipollini.

Bring a pot of water to a boil over high heat, add your bag of onions and blanch them for a few minutes (I left mine in approx. 3). Drain onions and let cool a bit. Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat. Remove sausage from casings and brown, breaking up with a wooden spoon or spatula until well browned. Peel onions from their skins and add to pot. The easiest way to do this I found was to nip the end off with a pairing knife and then squeeze the little suckers out of their skins. Be fair warned that some of these onions will fly across your kitchen. It’s sort of hilarious. Sauté the sausage and onions together for a bit, add the garlic, a bit of salt, pepper and some crushed red pepper. Add the tomato paste and stir everything together well. Dash in some of the sherry vinegar and let the vinegar cook off. This only takes a moment, really.

Add your potatoes and chicken stock to cover. Turn the heat up to a boil. Let boil until potatoes are tender and cooked through. Once the potatoes are tender you can serve or turn down and let simmer until you’re ready to eat. Top with crunched up crackers or pita chips and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese.

Oh by the way, I also served this to myself with a grilled cheddar, avocado and bacon sandwich. Good fat meets bad fat in a battle of the fats. Clearly in this battle, my tastebuds win.

muchos gracias

So I would love to write a squishy post all about how thankful I am for my life, my fam, my buds, my boyf and my blog and I did. But once again the evil gods of technology are breathing down my neck and at this point in time, I just need to play it safe in the interest of posting just a little something as we come into one of my very favorite holidays. Thanksgiving is special because it’s a wonderful excuse to take time out and slow down. I don’t need to tell you I can get behind the idea of devoting an entire day to the cooking and the eating of deliciousness. One thing I love that my family always does is that everybody goes around the table and says something they’re thankful for. The answers are usually in varying degrees of seriousness and silliness because that’s just how we roll. We’re cheesy but we’re cute. Seriously, one year we dressed as pilgrims for Thanksgiving. I’m not joking, I have the photos. My sister said her and her husband are planning on making pilgrim hats this year in order to embarrass his sister, who is bringing her new boyfriend to Thanksgiving at their house. Incredible. I wish I could be there.

Another reason why I love Thanksgiving is that though it is steeped in tradition, my own family Thanksgiving takes different shapes every year. We’re not a stick to one location or guest list type of fam. Sometimes there are 6 of us, sometimes, 20. It’s whatever works. I appreciate the flexibility. Last year and the year before the whole extended family gathered at my aunts’ house in Chatham. The year before that just my Dad and I went out to a super fancy dinner. That was a really nice one. Other years my sister has been home from California, and in others, it’s been just me, my mom and my brother’s brood. This year, I will join Paul and his family at his aunt’s house in Connecticut. I love that my Thanksgiving takes different shapes, because the ultimate feeling I end up with is the same. Now, I’m not talking about the triptophan coma, although, all a happy-full-sleepy feeling is SO nice. I’m talking about taking the time to devote a day to one simple premise: the idea of being thankful. Gratitude is something that is so vital to our happiness, that we don’t often take the time to recognize. During the daily grind we bust our way through traffic and crowded subway cars, peel our eyes open in front of the computer screen, shrug our shoulders back and just try to maintain. We don’t think “I’m grateful for my job, I’m grateful for my car getting me from here to there and I’m grateful for my super comfortable, very full life.” It would behoove us all to be thankful at least once every day, not just on this day. So my goal for this Thanksgiving (besides making stellar stuffed mushrooms and a pumpkin roll) is to take a little bit of this holiday premise with me into the next day, and the day after that, and the next week and to keep it with me throughout the holiday season and hopefully, foreva. We may wake up from the food coma, but the feeling of peace that comes from embracing gratitude is something special that we can keep in our bellies long after we’ve left the table.



So leaving with those Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey, I’m off to seriously mess up my kitchen. I’m making stuffed mushrooms as an appetizer and a pumpkin roll as well. I will post about how they come out over the weekend or early next week!

Also, because on the other side of “thanks” is “give” I did want to give you a recipe today. Because this is Porky Dickens and there is no Porky Thanksgiving without a cocktail or two, I wanted to share a super simple, delicious drink recipe that is very Thanksgiving appropriate.

APPLE CIDER MIMOSAS

Apple cider
Your finest Champag-nah (perhaps a nice 2007 Andre?)
Cinnamon and Sugar
Optional garnishes: cinnamon sticks, apple slices

When I was a bartender, I used to work brunch. So every weekend, I would be in charge of coming up with a different type of mimosa as an alternative to the standard orange and champangah. This little lady was my Fall classic and was very popular. They are soooo good. Be warned, you can drink like 70 of these before you know it. I wouldn’t recommend that unless your family is the kind of family that enjoys when a holiday ends up with you break dancing on the kitchen floor (a la me circa Christmas 2001).

Dip rim of glass in cider, then roll in cinnamon and sugar (this is optional but adds a little something to the taste and look of this drink). Fill glass ¾ full with champagnah, top with cider to taste. Add garnish, if applicable. Enjoy (with caution)!

self pity and oven fries

Dear readers:

My work computer is cooked, my home computer is several years old and has a battery issue. I have been attempting for about three days and 45 minutes to try and post something and neither the computer I am working on now, or my home computer can seem to handle me trying post a simple blog.

I'm truly embarassed to admit this but I have been sitting here whimpering trying to CUT and PASTE my word document into this field and it's not working (now imagine me crying a little bit) it's JUST. NOT. WORKING. Frustration can not really express how I feel at this point in time but I'm going to persevere right now and do what I always try and remember to do when things are super frusterating: keep it simple.

I'm not going to complain any further about the fact that due to not having a computer/ being able to work at my own desk I have been a nomadic secretary for the past week, I'm also not going to complain that I just haven't had much time to cook lately and that my back hurts and that I have class ALL day long on Saturday and I don't even know WHEN I'm going to cook things for Thanksgiving, no I swear I'm not going to bog this forum down with a vicious cycle of whines. I swear, I'm finished. I'll save all my whining for Paul and my mom. That's what I pay them for, right? Instead I'm going to provide the Porky faithful with a GO-TO recipe.

Many people might not believe in oven fries. "They can't get crispy" you think, but I'm here to tell you, well, you're wrong. These oven fries are not only crispy but they are also the perfect compliment to say, a leftover half a sandwich you saved for dinner, or a nice grilled piece of fish or chicken or on the side of a nice big salad. There are only a few trade secrets that need be applied to ensure delectable oven fries and I will provide them right here because you deserve them. And when I'm feeling like a whiny baby, I like to share, it takes the focus off the whining. French fries are quite possibly, my perfect comfort food. So in this haze of self pity and computer complaints, I thought I would share a little self love. Because as I noshed these bad boys down last night with my leftovers from Chacarera, well, I loved myself for making them. I loved my self a whole lot.

OVEN FRIES for ONE

One russet potato, cut into semi-uniform sized sticks
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper

I kept these simple last night, because I wanted to get them into the oven and into my belly ASAP, but you can jazz them up with different spices, sometimes I use curry powder, chili powder or some nice paprika. But always, sea salt and pepper do the trick.

Heat oven to 400. Cut your tater into fry shapes. Lightly spray a cookie sheet with olive oil spray or nonstick spray. Arrange your taters on the pan. Pour a palm full of olive oil into your hand, rub hands together and then man handle your fries until all of them are coated with oil. I find this trick ensures that I don't use too much oil; also, I just wash my hands after, so no additional utensils/dishes necessito. Jess like this. Generously salt and pepper your tater sticks and then arrange them as best you can so that each fry has his own personal space. The key, I mean KEY to crispy oven fries is two fold (this also goes for sweet potato fries) 1: space the suckers out; 2: nice hot oven. open the door ONLY ONCE to flip them over. Bake for 40 minutes, flipping at the 20 minute mark. Maybe add a little more salt and pepper when they're done. Maybe serve with some decadent horseradish mayo* for dipping. Maybe eat them on the coach, without even pausing to change the channel for several minutes, maybe that's just me.

Aaaahhh....I feel better already. Thanks for bearing with me through the whining. Enjoy your oven fries and Happy Friday!

* just stir together a bit of horseradish with a few tablespoons of mayo. Salt and pepper. This stuff is amazing. I feel like the fact that the oven fries are lo cal and the mayo is not balances itself out and life is all about balance, right? I also like to pair this horseradish mayo with ketchup and dip my fries in not one but both because I have a dipping sauce weakness issue.

PS- apparently I can't paste photos in either. Ugh. Whatever. I hate computers. The pics aren't that good anyways, so I'm just going to let this one go.

PPS- "Angel Eyes" by Jeff Healy Band just came on the radio, despite technical difficulties this day can't be ALL bad, right?!

and the slacktacular blog award goes to...

Confession: I haven’t done much in the way of cooking this week. I’ve been mooching most of my meals off of other people (read: my ma). I’m like sitting here feeling kind of guilty because dude. It’s Nov-em-ber. High eating season is upon us and I have been cooking repeats the past two weeks!

But I swear on all that is porky, I’m going to cook something in the next day or two and share it. I feel like mushrooms wicked bad lately. Maybe I am anticipating my stuffed mushroom apps on Thanksgiving or maybe I just read the words “foraged mushroom ragu” on the Saporitos menu online and passed out in my chair a little. Stay tuned to find out.

Meanwhiles, did you want to see our Halloween costumes? I thought you might.

less is more

A single egg on toast. This is what I have found myself in front of for the last two weeks at breakfast time. I would like to say I’m embracing minimalism, but the truth is I’m flat broke at the moment, so an egg on toast is about as fancy as I can get. But you know what? Look at that egg on toast. It's absolute perfection and I haven't gotten tired of it once. Mmmm. I'd eat one right now.

I pride myself on being pretty frugal. I don’t blow money on fancy lattes, and I rarely go out to lunch. I like to try my best to pay my bills early and on time. I try to resist the dangerous lure of Anthropologie online. I understand when a lady of my means (as in a decent income earner but with redonkulous debt/ bills) isn’t rolling in dough, but I usually have enough leftover in the kitty for one grocery store splurge per week. So when I find myself flat broke as in, no I can’t buy coffee if I want my rent check to clear broke, as in sob to my boyfriend about the oil bill broke, I’m like “what the heck is going on?” And then I’m like “what the heck am I going to eat?” The answer I found, is check out what you’ve got and make stuff up. And then eat it, because well, you sort of have no other options. And then you find that sometimes its our restrictions that enable us to be the most creative. Alls you’ve got is some garlic, stale bread and a dream, this is when kitchen miracles can happen.

But also sometimes, when we’re too busy being lame-os boo hooing about our grocery budget and cobbling together meals, we also forget to take any decent pictures of anything. Like I did. So please forgive the lack of formal recipes or nice photos in this week’s post. I’ll get you back I promise.

So last week I unintentionally made some Halloween colored lunch. I cut up and roasted a butternut squash with some chunks of onion and some smashed, but not peeled, garlic cloves. Roasted at 400 for about 40 minutes. When the veggies were done, I squeezed the roasted garlic into a bowl, added a few splashes of sherry vinegar, some salt, pepper and sugar, whisked in some olive oil to make a vinaigrette. Then I made some Trader Joe’s instant beluga lentils (in the micro—although I will say I get skeeved about cooking foods in plastic bags but you know you gotta do what you gotta do). Tossed the lentils with the roasted veggies in the vinaigrette. I then ate this for three days for lunch with a couple crumbles of goat cheese on top. Dynomite. Also, black and orange! So festive.



THEN, on Tuesday night I was making dinner for the mans and me. I listed him the options: I have this, that, this, that, and bacon. He was like “oh use the bacon and the gnocchi” and I was like “hmmmm…okay” and then I set to work making one of those meals you’re kind of nervous the whole time you’re cooking that the end result is going to be disgusting. You know the ones? I fried up a couple slices of bacon, crumbled them, set them aside. Poured the bacon grease out of the pan. Using the same skillet added a little olive oil and sautéed some diced onion. When the onion was translucent I added some minced garlic, then some baby spinach, the bacon crumbles. I tossed all of this over some TJ’s gnocchi (oh btws, you do know that Trader Joe’s is the budget gourmand’s BFF 4EVA, right? If you didn’t now you know) and added, guess what? Goat cheese. If I ever have a show like Emeril goat cheese will be my BAM! Except I’ll have to figure out a good way to make it pop, like a real tag line. GOAT CHEESE! Maybe I’ll just bleat, like a goat. Or not. We’ll have to have a reader poll for that. And I also won’t be as annoying as Emeril I promise. Anywho. To accompany the spinach and bacon gnocchi, I roasted some cauliflower. Guess what? I really like cauliflower. I did not know this until recently. This Winter’s going to be cauliflower central, mark my words. So I sliced her up, drizzled some olive oil and balsamic vinegar and tossed with salt and peps. Into a 400 degree oven for 20-25 minutes. Flip the cauliflower about half way through. It should get nice and caramelized on each side.



Meanwhile in a small pan toast some chopped almonds and bread crumbs (I used cracker crumbs, no diff.) in a tablespoon or so of butter. Just for a few minutes over med-low heat. When the cauliflower comes out toss in a bowl with the breadcrumbs and almonds. Say what? Do you know what butter toasted almonds and breadcrumbs can do to anything? Well, skies the limit.