Happy New Year everyone! I hope you've all enjoyed a festive, peaceful and wildly indulgent holiday season. For those of you who are waking up today with an eye toward acting on the New Year's resolutions you proclaimed last night in a drunken stupor, hold your horses. You're gonna want to make AND eat a batch of this amazing ice cream before you head down to your local gym to re-activate your membership.
The Best Eggnog
As I prepare to pack my bags for some holiday travel I thought I'd toss this quick post together, one last little culinary sharing before Christmas. For all of you out there who have never made your own eggnog, and gag when served the artificially sweetened and thickened sludge bought pre-made at the market, you are in for a treat. One sip of this magical elixir and you'll feel like Ebenezer Scrooge quaffing the "milk of human kindness" in the musical version of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" starring Albert Finney.
This is not a drink for the faint of heart, what with a dozen eggs, copious amounts of whole milk and cream, a couple cups of sugar, and over 6 cups of booze…..but hey, if you want to get giddy like old Uncle Ebenezer, you gotta take some health risks!
Pork Shoulder and Black-Eyed Pea Chili
I can't say as I've ever cooked a Michael Symon recipe before, but after trying this one I'm ready to go out and search for some more. I've never dined in any of Michael's restaurants, but have enjoyed his approach to food, his sense of humor, and the mad skills he's exhibited competing on shows like Iron Chef. I recently came across this recipe in Food & Wine magazine, and when I read in the accompanying article that Michael considers himself a "porketarian", I knew I had to try it.
White Bean and Rosemary Spread
This Lidia Bastianich recipe was made famous when Mark Bittman shared it in the NY Times a couple years back. It is terrific just as it's written here, but is so versatile it's easy to make your own. I added the lemon juice and rolled back the garlic from the original, but I can imagine it with a little more EVOO and maybe some chicken stock added and gently heated on the stove to make a warm bead dip to serve up on a cold night. YUM!
Penne with Sausage, Fennel and Pecorino
One of my favorite pasta dishes is pasta with broccoli rabe and sausage, and while this dish falls just short of that one's magnificence (in my humble opinion), it comes in a pretty close second. When it came to everyone else around my table though, this was even more beloved than my fave because for the most part the broccoli rabe is a little too bitter for the kids. They much prefer the sweet, caramelized anise flavor of the fennel to the bitter, GREEN vibe of the rapini. Oh well, to each his own.
Peanut Butter and Banana Steel Cut Oats
As a child my favorite sandwich was peanut butter and banana….hands down. That's not so say that a PB&J (especially one heavy on the J) didn't make me smile too, but if I had my choice of the sweet component in the salty-sweet sandwiches of my youth, it was always banana.
To this day if I see a few perfectly ripe bananas sitting on the counter my first thought is not to eat it straight-up, blend it up in a smoothie, or craft it into a banana bread. No, my first thought is to slice it on a bias, nestle it into a deep layer of rich peanut butter spread onto some good old-fashioned white bread (don't judge me), and take a psychic trip back to grade school while eating my favorite sandwich with plenty of potato chips thank you very much.
Caramel Chicken
Sometimes the name of a recipe is enough to make you want to try it.
Caramel Chicken…..uh, hello?
In this case, if the name weren't enough, then the photo that accompanied the recipe in a recent issue of Bon Appétit certainly closed the deal. The shot, not unlike the one above, showing the chicken nestled in a rich, salty-sweet sauce surrounded by caramelized garlic and topped with vibrant slices of scallion almost stopped my heart.
Team No Kid Hungry Give-A-Thon
In the spirit of all that is good this holiday season, please join me in helping my friends at Share Our Strength and Tyson Foods raise some money to help end childhood hunger in America. As we all push ourselves away from holiday tables with over-full bellies, it's important to remember that many of our young will be going to bed hungry tonight.
Childhood hunger is a big problem with a simple solution. Here in America, the wealthiest nation on the planet, 16 million kids aren't getting the food they need. $1 raised through this Give-A-Thon connects a child to up to 10 meals. $10 = 100, $25 = 250……you get the picture. If we reach our goal of $25,000 today, we'll provide hungry children with access to 250,000 additional meals.
Even better, if you donate to the cause today as part of the national "Giving Tuesday" effort, the generous folks at Tyson Foods will match your donation—dollar for dollar—giving us the potential to raise $50,000 in a single day, providing hungry children with access to 500,000 additional meals.
For those of you who are social media savvy, once you've made your pledge please help spread the word of the Give-A-Thon on Twitter and Facebook using the hashtags #nokidhungry, and #givingtuesday.
Please click on THIS LINK right now to donate to the No Kid Hungry Give-A-Thon, and join me in the fight to end childhood hunger in America.
Thank you so much and Happy Holidays!
Cheers – Steve
Sweet and Spicy Pumpkin Seeds
I was introduced to these addictive little buggers when visiting with my brother not long ago. He made his from scratch, scooping the seeds from whole pumpkins, cleaning them, roasting them to dry them, then finally cooking them in sugar to candy them and tossing them in a sweet-salty spice mix to finish.
Happy Thanksgiving!
No new recipe today, just a word of thanks to all of you "Oui, Chef" readers out there who are all such a big part of what we do here on our little blog.
We wish you all a fabulous holiday filled with family, friends, a great feast, and lots of love!
For those of you still doing some last minute Thanksgiving cooking, click HERE to get the recipe for the Gingered Cranberry Fig Chutney pictured above, a perfect addition to your Thanksgiving feast.
Cheers – Steve