December 2009 – The Kitchen Illiterate

Pasta with Creamy Ham and Mustard Sauce

This is one of those dinners that I threw together in an attempt to use up some of the things in my refrigerator and I am so pleased with that I’m adding it to the repertoire of regularly weeknight dinners. Easy, fast, and super delicious, and even better, it smells exactly like a ham and cheese sandwich, though there is no cheese to speak of here. Just onions, ham, cream, oregano, and a bit of dijon mustard. This is one of those meals that makes me think I shouldn’t have figured out how to make an easy and fast cream sauce, because this kind of deliciousness should probably require more work.
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Chocolate Peppermint Cookies, take two

One of the first recipes I posted to this site three years ago was for these Chocolate Peppermint Cookies. This was before I had a camera, and sadly, because I am a hugely visual person and am only attracted to recipes with a visual display of the results, I have, over the years, forgotten about this recipe. Which is a shame, because it’s a great recipe. The cookies are chewy and deeply chocolate-y, and perfectly balanced by the peppermint candies. One of my co-workers asked if there was toffee in them, because the melted peppermint candies have that toffee-like texture, and the brown sugar in the cookie dough gives them a slightly caramel-like flavor. All around these are excellent cookies, and as I had one more batch of cookies to make before my Christmas baking was done, these were just the thing.
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Caramel Walnut Buche de Noel

When I was in high school I was a bit of a Francophile. Ok, I was a lot of a Francophile. I took French throughout high school, and most years our teacher would bring a buche de noel to share before our winter break. One year we even got to take over the home ec room and make one. I loved them and every year I think of making one again, but I never have. This year, for our library’s holiday party, our lovely admin asked me to bring a dessert. I poured over cookbooks and holiday cooking magazines before it hit me: Of course I had to make a buche de noel!
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Beef Stroganoff

I always thought of beef stroganoff as airline food, or cafeteria food. Something gloppy and lukewarm served in large buffet trays by people in uniforms. But a few years ago my dear friend Crystal requested that I make beef stroganoff for her birthday dinner, and I realized just how wrong I’d been. When done right, beef stroganoff is rich and tangy and elegant and it really makes me want to cook meat more often. Lately I’ve been craving it something fierce, so last night I decided to make it again. And I was practically swooning into my bowl, it was so delicious. If you, too, would like to swoon over dinner, give this a try.
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Cauliflower Caper Risotto

Last night I threw together this risotto willy nilly, completely unsure if the random things I pulled out the refrigerator would really taste right together. And boy howdy did they! This risotto blew my mind with awesomeness. The cauliflower became soft and almost silky, the herbes de provence gave this a very Thanksgiving kind of flavor (thyme and fennel will do that), and the capers added a hit of delightful briny saltiness that elevated the whole dish. This was one of those rare kitchen triumphs, the kind that feel even more special because the whole endeavor began under a cloud of doubt. This risotto is one for the records.
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Cookie Time: Snickerdoodles

Snickerdoodles are a new holiday cookies for me. In fact, I don’t think I’ve made snickerdoodles since I was about 12 years old, when my friend Kari and I made a batch. We ate more of the dough than we baked, and ended up feeling pretty unwell, and I subsequently stayed away from snickerdoodles for about eighteen years. But for some reason I started craving them lately, so I had to make them as part of my holiday cookie baking fest. And for this one I decided to break out the Betty Crocker Cookbook. The cookbook was a gift on my 18th birthday, and I don’t think I’ve ever made anything from it before. That might have to change, because these cookies were perfect.
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Cookie Time: Mexican Wedding Cakes

Oh yes. It is time for Holiday Cookies, and for me, that always means at least one batch of my all time favorites: Mexican Wedding Cakes. Or Russian Tea Cakes. Or Kourambethes Greek Cookies. Whatever you call them, they are wonderful: buttery, sweet, nutty bites of awesome. And they’re pretty easy to make. These have been my favorite cookies for a long, long time, and when I first moved out on my own and had a Christmas alone in Boston, these were the cookies I knew I would have to make to alleviate at least a little bit of the sadness of being way from my family. My mom emailed her recipes, and I still have the print out, complete with butter smudges, stuffed into my recipe folder.
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Changes

Oh, hello. Yes, my site looks different again. My fancy pants custom CSS extension is expiring, and I have grand plans to move this little blog on over to its very own home, so I didn’t want to re-subscribe. I hope it’s not too jarring.

Creamy Squash Rigatoni

Whew. After a whirlwind week in San Diego with my family for Thanksgiving, it was kind of strange to come back to my small, quiet, still little house in Walla Walla. And also, it was cold. It is decidedly winter. And while I’m so not a fan of wintery things like frost and being cold, I am a huge fan of wintery things like squash and pot roast and sweaters and being cozy in my little house while the wind howls away outside. This pasta is perfect for that. It is also very rich. When I cooked this it was probably the first time I served myself dinner and couldn’t finish it. And not because it’s not good. It’s great, and I heartily enjoyed the leftovers. But be warned: It is rich. It might be best to serve this in small portions, with a crisp and light side salad.
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