Three Kings

Do you get stressed out over the winter holidays?  Does Christmas seem to sneak up on you too fast, and you find you just can't get all the things done that you wanted to before it arrives?  My friends, I have a solution:  Three Kings' Day.  Apparently we like to borrow traditions around here.  This one is from Latin America and some parts of Europe.  The celebration takes place on January 6 and commemorates the arrival of the wise people seeking the Christ child in Bethlehem.  

In a way, you're just stretching out the holiday season, so it might seem like more stress to add another one.  But believe me, it is SOOO relaxing to celebrate a holiday that no one around you knows about or pressures you to observe in any particular way!  We choose to give our gifts to each other on Three Kings' Day because it just seems to make more sense to connect the gift giving with those wise people.  Plus, this way we can enjoy the Christmas celebrations with our extended families without having to squeeze our own family time in sometime, somewhere, somehow.  We have our own Christmas season traditions that make the time special for us without the presents.  

Since we've borrowed Three Kings' Day from another culture (and some cool families we know), we don't try to be all authentic with it or anything (in fact, we celebrated a week late this year on January 13--who cares?!?  it's just for us!) but this year I did look up some traditional foods for the holiday and decided to make a "rosca de reyes"--Three Kings' Bread. 

 

I won't tell you how many pictures I took trying to make this look more appealing.  That would be embarrassing and seem contrary to the nature of this blog (which my husband is always accusing of not being "uncensored" enough in that I don't post every single dish I ever make).  But for the record, I think it would have looked better if I had taken some sort of icing application class or just not put any of those Princess-Leia's-hair-like loops of icing on it.  YET, the added sweetness was a definite bonus (I flavored the plain icing with cinnamon!), so I'll try not to be too vain about it. I also would forgo the orange slices which I put on along with the colored sugar for some festive flair.  It just meant that the bread was soggy underneath and not slathered with yummy hair-like loops of icing.

The bread is eggy, lightly sweet, and lightly spiced with cinnamon and orange zest.  I pretty much followed this recipe.  Which is pretty much the exact same thing as the Easter bread I made last year (just switch out the orange zest for lemon zest and swap the baby Jesus for an egg!  viola!).  We didn't really put in a baby Jesus figurine since we don't celebrate Candlemas on February 2 (whoever bites into the figurine treats everyone to tamales at Candlemas apparently).  

So you see, we pretty much do our own thing, incorporating bits and pieces of the tradition that we like.  We took the bread over to my in-laws' that evening and "caroled" for them ("We Three Kings", of course!) before sharing the bread and hot chocolate together.  That in itself was fun enough to make this a true tradition for our family by doing it again next year.  Maybe we'll even hit the right day!

Pogaca

Pogaca are little cheese/herb-filled Turkish pastries that I got a sudden hankering for last week.  My sister-in-law has never been afraid of making Turkish foods that she loves, so I was inspired to try these even though I'd never made nor seen them made before.  

First off, we must work on our pronunciation.  It might be tempting to look at "pogaca" and want to say "po-gak-a".  Um, no.  I apologize for not having Turkish characters (or not knowing how to access them), but the "g" should have a curl on its head (making it silent, drawing out the preceding vowel) and the "c" really needs it's tail (making it a "ch" sound).  Thus, we say "poh-ach-a" with a kind of dip in the voice after the "o".  All right, then.  Practice makes . . . good enough.

I found a great recipe online that yields a dough with a kind of flakiness.  It was very easy to work with and the pogaca were delicious--cold or re-heated--several days following.  The only changes I made to the recipe were to make a 1/2 batch (which I made into 20 pastries) and to use a mixture of feta and cottage cheese rather than all feta to make the inside a little creamier.  I think next time I would even go 1/2 and 1/2 on the cheeses; I would also make a 1/4 batch and do something like 15 pastries to get more of a two-bite size rather than a four-bite. 

I shaped mine by taking the ball of dough in both hands, sticking my thumbs in the center and turning it as if making a vase or cup on a pottery wheel.  You don't have to kick your foot as you do this, though.  Once I had the "walls" of the dough thin enough I put about a TBSP of filling in, pinched it shut, then turned it over and smoothed it back into a ball shape. 

As the recipe says, there is no need to pre-heat the oven (fun!), but I would recommend checking on them after about 25 minutes to see if they're browned to your liking.  I thought 35 minutes got them a little too dark for my taste.

If you're looking for an easy, fun pastry project that tastes delicious and keeps well, try making pogaca!  Did you remember to say "poh-ach-a"?

Easy, Easy Truffles

So I'm the dummy who can't figure out how to melt chocolate for dipping without scorching it in the microwave (I think I'll just use the stove next time).  BUT, I'm also the genius who turned all that slightly scorched chocolate into yummy, smooth truffles!

I found this recipe for almond truffles (requirement being "uses evaporated milk instead of heavy cream"), but I'll re-write it here since I made enough minor alterations . . . 

Almond (or any flavor) Truffles
yield: about 24 1-inch candies

1/2 cup evaporated milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 3/4 cup chocolate chips
1/2 tsp almond, vanilla--or any--flavoring (amount is for extract--proceed with  caution if you are using oils, adding just a little at a time)
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup coating of choice (nuts, sugar, cocoa powder, etc.)

Method: Bring evaporated milk and sugar to a boil in a small saucepan on the stove.  Once it boils cook for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat and stir in chocolate until smooth.  Add flavoring and salt and stir again.  Refrigerate for a few hours until hard enough to mold.  Roll into one-inch balls and coat with cocoa powder, powdered sugar, toasted and crushed nuts, etc. to match the flavor of the truffles.  Enjoy!

My Hot Cocoa

Mmmmm . . . what could be better than a snowy day at home with a cup of hot cocoa and a good book?  Now, if only it would snow and the baby would sleep long enough for me to grab that book!  Well, at least I can have the hot cocoa any time I want.

In searching for recipes, I realized that most of them include coffee creamer.  Huh?  Doesn't hot cocoa already have powdered milk?  In order to avoid the creamer (which has way too many un-pronouncable ingredients), I had to come up with my own recipe.  I decided to use malted milk powder to add some depth of flavor (possibly missing if I didn't use the creamer) since I already had some on hand.  Once it's gone, I might try making the mix without too, just to see if it's still yummy.

But in case you need some hot cocoa today, here's my first recipe:


Anita's Hot Cocoa Mix
yield: 4 cups of mix (16 servings)

2 cups powdered milk
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup malted milk powder (plain, not chocolate)
1 tsp salt 

Mix together and store in an airtight container for as long as it will last!  I usually do half of the ingredients at a time in my food processor, so that any lumps are worked out nicely.  Then I stir it all together in a bowl.  Use 1/4 cup mix to 8-10 ounces of hot water (or add a little milk in place of some of the water to make it even creamier!).

Notes:  seems like maybe you could just use granulated sugar and skip the powdered sugar, but I haven't tried that yet.  The extra starch in the powdered sugar may add to the texture in a good way.  Also, I'm sure chocolate malted milk powder would be delicious too, though that's not what's in my cupboard.  Also, if you're not put off by coffee creamers, you could have lots of fun with different flavors (just use creamer in place of the malted milk powder).

Festive Cookies

Want some festive, colorful cookies for Christmas but can't stand the idea of all that icing (and the inevitable mess that goes with it)?  Not that I have anything against icing, really.  It's just that I've got extremely limited counter space, and all of it accessible to a 15-month-old-stool-pushing-and-climing-onto toddler.  Yeah.  Add icing to that mix.  

Instead, to get my holiday color/sparkle fix I mixed up a batch of plain old snickerdoodle dough (I love snickerdoodles!) and rolled the balls in colored sugar instead of white sugar.  How simple is that?  I'm sure about a million other people have already done this, but in case you hadn't thought of it yet, either . . . 

red:  this comes out looking pink when done, but still pretty

 

I like the green!  Reminds me of St. Pat's Day too!

 

So here's to your sticky-free but still colorful and bright Christmas (if you choose to go this route)!  If not, well I guess I still hope you have a colorful and bright Christmas too.

Venison Steaks with Mushrooms

Another successful hunt and another traditional venison tenderloin dinner.  This is probably the one time a year I actually cook steaks.  In fact, I didn't even save more than the 6 slices of tenderloin for this dinner because last year I ended up chunking all of it to cook in stews or curries anyway.  

But I really liked how this recipe turned out, so I might save a few more steaks if my man gets a doe too.  

As I remember it:

Venison Steaks with Mushroom Sauce

3-4 servings, depending on how hungry you are!

6 venison tenderloin steaks

garlic, salt, and pepper for rubbing

2 TBSP butter

1/2 onion, sliced

1-2 cups sliced mushrooms (I had baby bellas)

1 clove garlic, minced

1 cup broth (I just had vegetarian bullion on hand)

1 TBSP worcestershire sauce

1 TBSP balsamic vinegar (this would be better with wine or sherry)

1 TBSP flour mixed smooth with a few tablespoons water

salt, pepper, ground rosemary to taste

Instructions:  Pound out your venison steaks to about 1/2-inch thick.  Rub on one side with minced garlic, salt and pepper.  Rub on other side with salt and pepper.  Set aside to marinate until ready to continue with the recipe.

Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat and sear the steaks 1-2 minutes on each side until browned.  Remove from skillet and set aside.  In the same skillet sautee onions for a few minutes until beginning to turn translucent.  Add more butter if necessary.  Add mushrooms and garlic and continue to sautee over medium heat until the mushrooms are "wilted" (do you know what I mean?).  Add remaining ingredients to skillet and simmer until thickened.  Put steaks back in to the sauce and simmer, covered, a few minutes on each side until done to your liking.  Serve over potatoes or rice!

Cook's Word: when I first made the sauce, I didn't think to add flour for thickening, which is why it got added in later with water.  However, I think it would be just as well to sprinkle flour over the mushroom/onion saute and cook a minute or so before adding the other liquids.  I also simmered the steaks in the sauce longer than I would another time (about 1/2 hour) but they were nice and tender, so no harm done.  I did need to keep flipping them because the top would dry out.  I suppose I could have kept the pan covered and eliminated that problem.  Yeah, there are always improvements for next time.  We all liked the flavor very well, though.  This served four adults with medium appetites, so you might want to consider doing at least two steaks per person if you have BIG appetites!

Frittata

A simple and delicious dish for any meal of the day, especially if you want quiche but don't feel like fooling with a crust (or the baking element in your oven just went out, which is what happened to me right before Thanksgiving!). Like quiche, you can fill your frittata with any combination of ingredients that suits your fancy: bacon and cheese; asparagus and ham; spinach; onions; potatoes. And so on. Once you have your fillings prepared (sauteed, cooked, wilted, fried, etc.) you pour your egg/cheese mixture over them in an oven-proof skillet and cook on the stove until the eggs are mostly set but still wet on top. Then transfer to the oven and broil until the top is lightly browned. That's it! 

For this frittata, I used sauteed spinach and onions and boiled potato slices. I mixed in some needing-to-be-used cream cheese with the eggs and then sprinkled feta on the top just before it went under the broiler. YUM! I was trying to conserve cookware, so I sauteed the spinach and onions right in the cast iron skillet that I cooked the frittata in. However, I think I would do them in a separate pan next time so that I could layer the frittata with the potatoes on the bottom of the pan, then spinach, then eggs poured over all. That way the potatoes could get crispy on the bottom instead of the spinach. Make sure there is some butter or oil under all that too, by the way! 

For this frittata, I used 6 eggs and a dash of milk, salt and pepper. It took longer to cook on the stove than I thought it should, but that may have been because I was using a cast iron skillet instead of a non-stick making it hard to lift the edges and let the eggs on top run down underneath to cook faster. 

Whatever your method, this is simpler and faster than quiche and just as tasty. As a main course, this fed two adults and a toddler with two slices left over. Enjoy experimenting!