Filed under Holidays, Chocolate by Nicole | 7 comments
The best part about being, say, under the age of 11 is that you get to order off the kid’s menu in restaurants. The main course offerings of kid’s menu are not the terribly exciting. In fact, many such menus are limited to plain hamburgers, grilled cheese and french fries. No, the thing that makes me nostalgic is the free dessert that comes along with the meal. I will admit that it isn’t usually anything exciting, but what kid could resist a restaurant meal that includes dessert?
The most common dessert wass a scoop of vanilla ice cream, occasionally turned into a sunday with a bit of fudge and whipped cream, but I would always order a dirt cup when it was on the menu. A dirt cup is a layered dish of chocolate pudding and chocolate cookie (or cake) crumbs that vaguely resembles a cup of dirt. This similarity is played upon with the inclusion a few gummi-worms.
I will freely admit that I actually ordered the dessert for the gummi worms alone. I still eat them first.
This dirt cup may not trick anyone, but it makes an adorable dessert for kids of any age and a fun one for grown-ups on Halloween.There is no recipe for these, just put some chocolate pudding into a cup and top with crushed chocolate biscuits or cake crumbs. I used an extra cupcake I had frozen a few weeks back. Top your dirt cup with gummi-worms and any other appropriate decorations you have on hand. If you’re a Harry Potter fan, like me, perhaps you’ll notice that my dessert bears a striking similarity to the dark mark. What could be spookier?
Happy Halloween, everyone!
Filed under Recipes, Savory Main Dishes by Nicole | 14 comments
When you’re celebrating a cat’s birthday, like Clare is celebrating Kiri’s birthday this weekend, it is probably a good idea to put fish on the menu. I love my cats, but I’m not about to go out and purchase a big piece of sushi grade Ahi tuna for them. I bought this for human consumption, but in the spirit of Kiri’s birthday, I did give the scraps to my cats. With the rest of the tuna, I made a lovely ceviche, which is more than appropriate for human parties. It is incredibly easy, since it requires no actual cooking and can be prepared in advance.
Ceviche is a latin American dish where fish that is “cooked” with citric acid, lime juice in this case, which gives it a slightly firmer texture than raw seafood. Just about any kind of seafood can be used, from tuna to shrimp to scallops. In its simplest form, ceviche is just citrus and fish, but it is very versatile. I like to keep the latin flair and make mine with tomato, onion and avocado. If you really want to minimise the work, just purchase some high quality, fresh salsa and add that to the fish, along with the lime juice and oil.
Ceviche is a great appetiser or first course. Many restaurants, for reasons I’m not entirely certain of, serve ceviche in cocktail or martini glasses. I’m not one to go against tradition (not all the time, anyway), so I did the same here. Serve ceviche with tortilla chips or just hand your guests a fork.
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Filed under Recipes, Savory Snacks, Dips and Sauces by Nicole | 11 comments
Having recently acquired some seasonal cookie cutters, it was not a big leap to decide to use them to cute something other than dough, although you might not suspect that if you’ve been paying attention this week. I layered some fresh pitas and pressed the butters through them to make lots of thin chips. There is no magic number here, simply make as many as you’d like. I, personally, like a lot. Place in a single layer on a baking sheet, syrap or brush lightly with vegetable oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper and paprika. Rubbing the pitas with a split garlic clove before hand is a good idea, if you want a little more flavor from your chips. Bake for 4-6 minutes at 400F, until browned and crisp at the edges.
But chips, as delightlyfull shaped as they may be, aren’t very interesting without dip.
The moment I saw this Pumpkin Hummus in the new issue of Cooking Light, I went into the kitchen and made it. Lucky I already had all the ingredients on hand.
The dip has the familiar tahini and garlic taste of traditional hummus, but lacks the slight density of the usual chickpeas. It’s light, flavorful and delicious. I omitted the extra teaspoon of olive oil called for in the recipe, since I felt that the tahini had the oil content well-covered. It makes a fairly large batch, but will store well for a few days in the fridge, if it lasts that long.
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Filed under Recipes, Cookies, Holidays by Nicole | 33 comments
Halloween is a fantastic holiday. It is low pressure and all of the individual elements are fun: dressing up, carving pumpkins, eating treats. For anyone who doesn’t celebrate it, kids dress up in costumes and people give them candy. I practically lived for the holiday when I was little; I didn’t get much candy at home. Of course, as I got older I learned to appreciate things in life other than free candy. And they are… well, you know what they are. They’re very important.
I can’t “Trick or Treat” anymore. The only person who still thinks I could pass for a primary school student is my great aunt, and, between us, she may not be entirely clear on what year it is (of course I love her anyway). I still have a lot of fun decorating, picking out a costume and, of course, making Halloween goodies.
The distinct chill in the air makes this the perfect time of year for my first batch of gingerbread. I couldn’t resist making the Gingerbread Skeleton cookies. I knew that I wanted to make these when I first saw them on Epicurious.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have any animal cookie cutters aside from one in the shape of a unicorn. And I think we can all agree that nothing is scarier than a skeletal unicorn. Except maybe a zombie unicorn, but you’re on your own for that one.
Gingerbread dough is simple and spicy. I added a bit of cinnamon and extra ginger to mine. This dough rolled out very easily with a bit of flour and rerolled without seeming to develop much, if any, toughness. I went for a baking time in the middle of the frame recommended by the recipe and got soft, chewy cookies. The flavor was very good, neither too spicy nor too bland. There isn’t much sugar in the recipe, so I actually prefered the iced cookies to the un-iced, enjoying that extra hint of sweetness.
My icing was a simple, stiff mixture of confectioners’ sugar, vanilla extract and milk. I used a small, plain tipped piping bag. This icing couldn’t be any easier, but if you buy a tube of white decorator icing at the market, I won’t tell.
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Filed under Recipes, Cookies, Sweet Stuff, Candies by Nicole | 23 comments
Brachs Candy Corn are one of the great things about Halloween. They are small, sugary lumps that vaguely resemble corn kernals (think of the yellow end facing outward) and I, for some unknown reason, can’t seem to stop eating them. Oh well. They only come out once a year, so I can’t feel too bad about bringing a bag home.
I picked up another bag of them last weekend. If you’ve ever had these candies, do you notice anything odd about the packaging?
The “Made with Real Honey” claim is something I had never noticed before. Indeed, the older bags lacked this text. I checked the ingredients. On the new package:
And on the old:
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Filed under Recipes, Cookies, Chocolate by Nicole | 20 comments
Given that, for those of us in the northern hemisphere, fall is upon us, I am much more inclined than usual to make things with pumpkin. I know other people are, too. The subtley sweet and easy spiceability of the squash make it practically the symbol of fall. I just love it any time, but certainly am aware of a higher level of acceptability as the year progresses.
Along with casseroles, cakes and pies, cookies seem like a good vehicle for pumpkin. Unfortunately, many pumpkin cookies are spongy and cakey and rubbery. The flavor is good, but you just don’t want to keep chewing them. Even if they are fine the day they come out of the oven, the next day they are dry and bland. Tempting, isn’t it?
These pumpkin cookies, fortunately, do not seem to have those problems. They are very soft and a bit chewy, but not cakey. They are moist and have a good pumpkin flavor. The whole cookie presents a slightly unusual, but excellent, combination of texture and flavors. Best of all, they retain all of these qualities, making them just as good (if not better) on the second day. I think that they are best with chocolate chips and a few nuts, but they work well with raisins and dried cranberries, too. I always like to add the optional pecans for crunch.
I recommend using freshly cooked, cooled and pureed pumpkin because I think that the extra moisture helps the cookie’s texture; canned pumpkin may result in an ever so slightly cakey cookie.
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