Food You!

Today has starred family food.  My fiance's parents cooked up a huge lunch for us complete with a turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans and more!  I brought a loaf of Irish soda bread to have with the food, though I wont include it here since it came in a bag and all I did was mix it with water.  Tasty, but not necessarily appropriate for this space.

After his parents, we moved on to my family and had an enormous dinner with a pot roast, squash, asparagus, broccoli, wild rice and more.  I honestly can't remember it all, though we came home with plenty of left-overs.  After about 30 minutes of groaning on the couch, we moved on to the sweet stuff.  To complement our cookies, fudge and some carrot cake, my sister and I had some Marsala wine.  Nothing better than a sweet wine.  Here are some pictures she took of the foods:

I'm not entirely sure what everything is, however the light brown balls are snickerdoodles and the large squares are caramel chocolate cake thingies.  Oh, and there is some peppermint fudge stuff.  The darker brown balls are some sort of truffle and the other cookies have m&ms in them.

Naturally we've eaten ourselves silly and have no plans on cooking today or tomorrow.  However my parents gave us quite the foodie gift:


Isn't it beautiful?



Now back to enjoying a glass of Three Philosophers and the Victorian episode of the Supersizers.  Rad.

I used to be a vegetarian, throughout most of college actually.  Somehow my fiance managed to turn me back onto delicious dead things.  So that is why I bring to you these delicious meats.  Puff pastry meat gifts.

Meat Gifts
Ingredients:
-one frozen roll of breakfast sausage
-box of frozen puff pastry (or make your own, whatever floats your boat)
-small onion
-two cloves garlic
-1t paprika
-pinch of your favorite spices, I used herbes de provence
-one egg

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 425
2. Roughly slice onion (I used a small mandolin) and chop or press garlic.  Combine in a bowl with sausage and spices, however be sure to remove any casing from the meat.  Mine didn't have casing so you may not need to worry about that.



3. Mix!  Use your hands, or if the sausage hasn't thawed all the way like mine hadn't, use a meat pounder!  Pound that meat!



4. Take the puff pastry and, if not flat flatten it.  If it is flat, and once it is flat, cut into roughly 5x5 squares.


5. Take about two to three tablespoons worth of the meat mix (or more if you're daring) and place in the middle of each square.  Fold the pastry to have a small opening at the top but none at the sides.
6.  Open up your egg and mix everything up a bit.  Brush the eggy goodness onto your happy little meat gifts.  Give leftover egg to the dog.



7. Cover baking sheet with foil and place your meaty gifts on it.  Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the desired golden brown-ness has been reached.


And they'r ready to eat!  They are very crispy and flaky at this point, but also very hot.  They can be reheated later on in the microwave but lose all that crispiness and the pastry takes on a little bit of a rubbery feeling.

Yummy!

So I decided not to go the molasses route because I couldn't find a recipe that didn't call for 10+ things we didn't already have.  For the toffee, all I needed was some heavy cream.  Excellent!

Ingredients:
8T unsalted butter (1 stick)
1.5 cups granulated sugar
1 packed cup dark brown sugar (oh yeah)
.75 cup plus 2T heavy cream
1t pure vanilla extract (may want to add some almond or cinnamon too, but use very sparingly)

Directions:
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
Combine butter, sugars and cream in a saucepan over medium-low heat.  Stir ocassionaly until sugar is completely dissolved.


Continue cooking without stirring.  Keep heat medium-low until mixture reaches 295-300 degrees.  My electric stove made this difficult so adjust heat if needed.  The color should be a rich, dark brown.


Do you like my thermometer?  I got it at Target for about $5!  I do have a much nicer one on my wedding registry, but this was the right price at the right time.

Remove the pan from the heat and quickly stir in any extracts.  Immediately pour onto the prepared baking sheet and spread candy evenly (do this quickly, it's already cooling!).


Mmm... candy goo.  I had fun licking the pot!


When cool, break the candy into shards using whatever violence you prefer.  I used my fists!


This will be a busy weekend - Saturday is a going away party in the morning and a Christmas party at night, and then Sunday is a family Christmas gift giving thingy and also a lot of snow.

Yesterday I did something that I don't think I ever want to attempt again.  Yesterday I hard boiled quail eggs - 18 quail eggs.  I thought to myself: hey, this can't be more difficult than a regular chicken egg, right?  Right?

Turns out it's a bit more labor intensive than I expected.

Ingredients:
1 cup vinegar
1 cup water
18 quail eggs

Step one:  soak quail eggs in warm water to warm and clean them.  Keep in mind, these are very delicate so don't just dump them in a bowl, ok?


Step three: once boiling, time it for five minutes.  This is a good time to make some instant soup to maybe add the eggs to.


Step five: allow the eggs to cool.  For this I dumped the hot water out and stuck the eggs into a cold water bath.  Do whatever you prefer, just be fore-warned the vinegar causes the brown bits on the eggs to flake off.  Things are about to get messy.


Now just dry the eggy wonders on some paper towels and store them for a few days (they wont last long) in a sealed container in the fridge.  If you can't wait, feel free to grab some, grind some salt onto them, and go to town!


These eggs are so time-consuming to peel but they do seem more eggy than the chicken's eggs we get at the supermarket.  Worth it?  Sort of.  Will I do it again?  Perhaps in a month or so.

I made them yesterday and all 18 of them are now gone.  How sad I am.

Tis the season to sit at home, waiting for that job offer to call back.  Ok, not exactly.  Money is tighter than usual at the moment, so not only did we visit the local thrift stores and stop by the LIQUIDATION SALE at the Expo center, but there are more edible gifts this year than before.  To a recent Christmas party we brought a bottle of wine and some delicious fresh made spiced fudge.  Not only spiced, but cayenne pepper as well!

Somehow it's the edible gifts that bring the most smiles.

This weekend we'll be attending one going away party, a friend's Christmas party, and finally my family's Secret Santa party.  I haven't quite figured out what to make for the Secret Santa party (some sort of molasses candy if I can find a recipe that calls for items I already have!) but for the Christmas party Saturday night, well it's going to be a party amongst friends who like to have a good time.  With that in mind, I made some flavored Vodka.

The kumquat is the oldest I have and I should probably finish it off sometime soon.  Did I mention it's delicious?  Because it is - especially with cranberry juice and some rum and maybe a little grenadine.  But I digress.  There are two other flavors on the table: cinnamon and ginger.  Neither of these should be taken lightly or they will burn your nose hairs out!  They are tasty in their own way, and I can't wait to make new drinks with them (both would be great in hot chocolate).