Archive for the 'holidays' Category
Tomato Confit
December 28th, 2009by Lisa For two years now, I’ve served my Christmas filet with tomato confit. It’s totally delicious, sweet, herbaceous, jammy concoction that is pretty and complex enough for your holiday table. But every year I have way too much left over. This year, I halved the recipe and still had too much, and so when [...]
Holiday Dining: Eating In
December 28th, 2009by Lisa We are, when it comes to Christmas menus, a family of traditions. Though the side dishes and exact preparation may change from year to year, if my mother, my sister, or I are cooking, the meal is alway anchored by a beef filet. It’s a really expensive cut of meat, but our gatherings [...]
Making Cookies, Making a Mess
December 22nd, 2009by Caroline I was sharing some of my food writing with a friend recently — mostly stories of cooking with my kids — and she started shaking her head in wonder. “This is just so foreign to me,” she said, “All of your kitchen stories are so. . . happy.” I reminded her I do [...]
Milk Punch
December 21st, 2009by Lisa One of our favorite holiday traditions is Milk Punch. While the boys in the family could survive on Egg Nog and pumpkin pie from Thanksgiving until New Year, the girls here prefer Milk Punch, which is actually a traditional New Orleans drink. We are not in the least bit southern, but more than [...]
Christmas Cookies: Pistachio-Cranberry Icebox Cookies
December 17th, 2009by Caroline This is the third Christmas for this cookie recipe, which I found in Gourmet and love for all the reasons I love making candy: it’s quick, beautiful, and makes a lot. 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened 1/4 cup plus [...]
Christmas Candy: Salted Chocolate Pecan Toffee
December 15th, 2009by Caroline In his recent New Yorker piece about cookbooks, Adam Gopnik writes, “…cookbooks have two overt passions right now: one is simplicity, the other is salt.” This recipe, originally published in Sunset magazine, offers both. The boiling sugar makes it a poor choice to make with the kids’ assistance; just let them stand back [...]
Christmas Candy: Spicy Pumpkin Seed & Cherry Chocolate Bark
December 13th, 2009by Caroline I discovered this recipe last year in Catherine Newman’s Wondertime column, and now the only problem is making enough both to give away and keep some in the house for ourselves. I’ve made two batches already, and expect to make at least that much more before this holiday season is over. It is [...]
Christmas Cooking: Ben’s Chocolate-Coated Candied Orange Peel
December 7th, 2009by Caroline I am always ready to start the Christmas baking too early to actually start the Christmas baking. Last year (at exactly this time, I see), I was stirring up a batch of Wonderballs, no-bake peanut butter-oatmeal concoctions that we keep in the fridge. They are an excellent transitional snack, whether the gap you’re [...]
Thanksgiving Without An Oven?
November 24th, 2009by Caroline We alternate Thanksgivings either back east with my family, or in a beach rental here in California. For years, we shared the beach rental with my late mother-in-law, who would scout the rental kitchen ahead of time and pack boxes with good knives, mixing bowls, and her big white KitchenAid mixer, not to [...]