Happy Holidays!

For me the holidays are synonymous with baking. It just doesn't feel like Christmas until every surface in my house is covered with a baked good.

This year, over the course of one week, I made an assortment of six different baked goods:

Bourbon Truffles - It's not a holiday until bourbon is involved. This recipe was far more successful than my previous attempt, which produced mutant bourbon balls that resembled jabba the hut instead of a holiday confection. Still, bourbon truffle making is far more complicated and messy than other bourbon desserts. For a holiday go-to, I'd stick with bourbon brownies.

Buckeyes - I may not be a big Ohio State fan, but I can't help but love these addictive candies. Be prepared - the recipe yields an absurd amount of buckeyes. Also, I cut out a cup and a half or so of the confectioner's sugar. The candies are still very sweet and 6 cups of sugar is insane.

Donut Hole Cookies - This recipe was on one of my favorite blogs and I knew I had to try it this year. It's as good as it looks and definitely a cookie I will make again!

Classic Rice Krispy Treats - Perfect recipe if you're pressed for time. I'd forgotten how good homemade rice krispies are. The website has some great ideas for making them look more festive if you're feeling especially creative, but I was not nearly that ambitious.

To balance my baked goods out with something "healthy"...

Crispy Honey Nut Granola - This was surprisingly easy to make, though mine did not turn out as nice as the ones pictured on Once Upon A Chef, but that is nothing new.

Healthy Peanut Butter Coconut Cookies - I agree with the blogger, these are perfect for breakfast!

Merry Christmas!

Bourbon Brownies

At the beginning of the summer I vowed to try new bourbon recipes from my Kentucky Bourbon Cookbook. Admittedly, this resolution has gotten off to a slow start.  To date, I have only made two recipes - Chicken Kentuckiana and Pan-Seared Salmon with Chipotle Lime Bourbon Glaze. Fortunately last weekend I got back on track with Bourbon Brownies.  The recipe required some ingenuity - like devising my own double boiler...

Not as attractive as a Dutch oven, but it does the trick.

I couldn't find the exact recipe from my cookbook and don't want to run into any copyright issues, but here is a quick overview of what's required. First, you soak pecans in bourbon until they absorb half of the bourbon (roughly a half an hour). Then you toast the bourbon-soaked pecans and put aside the bourbon for later in the baking process. Next, you use the double boiler (or a contraption similar to the pic above) to melt unsweetened chocolate, butter and margarine. Once you've cooled the chocolate mixture, you stir in flour, brown sugar, granulated sugar, cocoa and the left over bourbon. Then you bake (in my oven, this took 15 minutes longer than the prescribed 25 minutes)...

YUM!

The end result is fantastic, fudgy, and deliciously bourbon-y.

Cooking with Bourbon: Pan-Seared Salmon with Chipotle Honey-Lime Bourbon Glaze

This recipe is as good as it sounds. It may be the best thing I've ever cooked (which obviously means it's an easy recipe). The glaze is a great spicy and sweet combination that complements the flavor of the salmon. It's perfect over white rice.

YUM!

Kentucky Cooking in Oklahoma

 Determined to keep my summer resolution to cook with bourbon once a week, I decided my mom and I should try a recipe together. Forced mother-daughter bonding activities can get tense, but fortunately we had fun making the recipe and neither of us walked away traumatized. 

We picked out Chicken Kentuckiana, a fried chicken dish with a spinach and mushroom bourbon cream sauce. I would love to post the recipe, but unfortunately think there might be some copyright issues, so the best I can do is refer you to The Kentucky Bourbon Cookbook's Amazon page. 

We modified the recipe slightly as we had skinless, boneless chicken breasts and used vegetable oil. My mom is a big advocate of always washing your chicken in warm water, so that helped the flour stick to the chicken, and the vegetable oil worked just fine for frying. The end result was great, and our approach was a bit healthier than the original recipe.  

Our healthier take on "fried" chicken.

While finishing cooking the fried chicken in cream sauce, we were concerned because the sauce was not thickening. Fortunately, my mom knew just what to do! She put a tablespoon of cornstarch into 1/4 cup of hot water and stirred so the starch dissolved. Once we added that to the sauce, it thickened nicely...

The bourbon cream sauce in mid-thicken

Chicken Kentuckiana was delicious and is dish I will be making again.  We ate it over rice, but the recipe also suggested mashed potatoes.  

Not wanting to miss out on the fun, my dad decided to make his fried green tomatoes!  They turned out great, and fortunately, I can share this recipe:

1) Mix Louisiana Fish Fry (in the cornmeal section of the grocery store) with a dash of Old Bay seasoning. 

2)Thinly slice green tomatoes. 

3) Combine 2-3 egg whites in a bowl and set to the side. (You can also whisk 2 full eggs together if you'd prefer.) 

4) In a large skillet, pour vegetable oil (enough so that there is 1/2 inch of oil in the pan) and heat over a medium heat. 

5) While the oil is heating, dip your tomatoes in the egg whites and cover both sides with the fish fry/seasoning mix. 

6) Place the tomatoes in the pan (they shouldn't touch each other and should leave room for you to maneuver), and when the tomatoes are browned, flip and fry them on the other side. 

7) Drain fried tomatoes on paper towels.

8) Serve and enjoy!

Summer Resolution: cook with bourbon once a week

In this blog, I have documented my love of bourbon (as well as cupcakes).  For my birthday, I received some new bourbon inspiration thanks to my friend Liz...

Aside from the mouthwatering pictures of Kentucky bourbon French toast with Kentucky bourbon blueberry syrup, the book gives a good overview of bourbon 101.  The book also is broken into season to encourage fresh ingredients...though I'm pretty sure that French toast should be made year round.  

I've been dying to try a recipe, but haven't had the chance until now.  I kicked off my bourbon cooking spree with my old favorite, Derby pie.  But from here on out, I'm going to try a new bourbon recipe and share the results.

Let the bourbon cooking begin!

Beat the summer heat...

Recent weeks have been unbearably hot, and as far as I can tell, there's no end in sight. The only option is to fight it. I like to do this by making refreshing drinks. (Similar to my "fight the blizzard" strategy of making warming drinks like hot buttered bourbon.) My current favorites include...

Leland Palmer Tea
This deliciously tangy tea is perfect for summer. I can't wait to substitute the gin with bourbon, seems like a great twist.

Raspberry-Rose Gin Rickey
I've never been a huge gin drinker, but bought a bottle for the Leland Palmer Tea and have plenty left over, so I've had to get creative. This is a refreshing drink and has me thinking that gin may be the perfect summer spirit.

Raspberry Champagne Cocktail
Since I now have all the raspberries from the gin rickey's (and who wants raspberries to go to waste), I thought I'd try something light and fun.

6 Tablespoons of raspberry vodka
As many raspberries as you want
Champagne

Smash the raspberries with the vodka in a martini shaker. Add ice. Shake. Pour into two glasses (don't strain) and top off with champagne.

The only risk of summer drink fun is finding yourself in the ingredient holding pattern I'm obviously experiencing. Though there are worse things, like summer heat without a cool drink...

For more inspiration, Food and Wine has a list of their 20 Best Summer Drinks.

Make it pretty!

My mom knows how to cook, she just prefers to avoid it. One time I called her in college saying I wish I had a homemade meal and she informed me that it was buy-one-get-one free pizza night at Domino's. Nevertheless, my mom was raised by my grandmother, a woman who lives by two rules in the kitchen:

1) Always make three times the amount of food you think you'll need (God forbid someone goes hungry),
2) Whatever you are making, make it pretty.

The last rule has been drilled into any person who has been within a 50 mile radius of my grandma's kitchen, but somehow it's been lost on me. As my bourbon ball odyssey at the demonstrated, I can make the most popular dessert at the Christmas potluck, but I cannot make it pretty. There was no getting around this embarrassing truth when I made Derby Pie for my family while in Oklahoma. My mom gasped in horror when she saw the pie crust, leading to the following conversation -

Mom: What are you doing??
Me: Making pie.
Mom: With crusts like that! Your grandma would be so ashamed!
Me: What?
Mom: Your pie crusts aren't pretty. You're supposed to crimp pie crusts. Haven't I taught you anything?!

This life lesson stayed with me all of three weeks. Fearing that I would shame my family, the next pie crust was a masterpiece. On a roll, I offered to make another Derby Pie for my coworkers. But I was exhausted when I got home tonight and did what any rational person would do in this situation - I called my mom for permission not to crimp the pie crust...

Me: I'm making an ugly Derby Pie. I can make the pie, but crimping the crust is just too much work.
Mom: You have to!
Me: Why? No one will even notice, they'll be too busy eating.
Mom: Because you have to show that the pie is loved.

Who can argue with that?

Maybe Mom is right...

(A loved pie)

Why should you go to H Street NE?

Recently, H Street NE has come into its own as a foodie destination. In 2006, the Palace of Wonders opened and jump started the bar scene, followed by Granville Moore's putting H Street on the map as a foodie destination. Since then, the area has exploded with excellent, reasonably priced eateries and nightlife (Taylor Gourmet, H Street Country Club, Sticky Rice, and Rock n' Roll Hotel).

The most recent newcomers on the scene are Dangerously Delicious and the Star & Shamrock.

I have mentioned Dangerously Delicious a few times before and couldn't wait for it to open. The shop is a Baltimore import that was recently featured on the Food Network show, "Best Thing I Ever Ate." Rodney Henry established Dangerously Delicious to support his music career, and it has a rock and roll vibe that includes live music performances. More importantly, it has an impressive selection of sweet and savory pies. I tried the Food Network-featured Baltimore Bomb pie, while my friend Emily enjoyed the Chocolate Chess pie. The Baltimore Bomb is made of Berger cookies (a Baltimore delicacy) mixed with vanilla chess filling - it has a great texture and I think it tastes best when heated. But I was more impressed with the Chocolate Chess pie, which has a nuanced, smooth chocolate flavor that melts in your mouth. I have yet to try a savory pie or any of the fruit pies, so several more trips are in order to fully experience the awesomeness that is Dangerously Delicious Pies.

Star & Shamrock is a brilliant blend of a Jewish deli and Irish pub. The sandwiches were delicious and I was impressed with the selection of reasonably priced beer, bourbon, and whiskey lists. (Any place that carries Kilkenny beer and Bakers bourbon is clearly a cut above the rest.)

H Street may not be metro accessible, but its restaurants and bars make it well worth the trip, so check it out!

The perfect snowbound drink

At some point in the middle of the snow storm, boredom overcame my holiday cooking burnout. I started experimenting with bourbon. I made a lackluster bourbon sesame shrimp recipe, but had better luck in the drink department. My favorite new drink recipe is for hot buttered bourbon and cider:

Columbus Good Eats

This afternoon my sister and I went to Short North for lunch at Betty's. The food was very good and they had a nice beer selection. Definitely worth checking out if you're in the area. The best part of lunch was dessert. We went to Jeni's for ice cream:


I tried the Riesling Poached Pear at the North Market on a previous visit and couldn't wait to return. Today I sampled Bourbon Buttered Pecan, Black Current Sorbet, and Scandinavian Winter Spices (cardamom, allspice, cinnamon, and nutmeg) - all amazing flavors, but I decided to go with a waffle cone of Queen City Cayenne (condensed milk chocolate Cincinnati-style with cayenne and cinnamon). Phenomenal.

Christmas Desserts: The Odyssey Continues

Last week I had no idea what I was in for when I started Phase Two of the bourbon ball process. This involved melting chocolate on a double boiler (I constructed my own by placing a glass mixing bowl over a simmering sauce pot) and covering the bourbon ball in chocolate. It sounds deceptively easy. But I assure you, it was not. My recipe recommended refrigerating the bourbon ball filling, but giving how quickly it melted in the chocolate, I think freezing it might have helped. I also suggest letting the chocolate cool down a bit as well. My first few bourbon balls were disasters:

Things got progressively better, but they still did not resemble the perfect candies my grandma made or the pictures in recipe books. They looked more like a chocolate Jabba the Hut, encasing everything in sight with chocolate:


I had nightmares of the bourbon ball eating everything in its path until it started to take over DC and moved up the coast.

The final batch turned out somewhat normal looking, though they were still melting on the spot in spite of having spent some time in the freezer.

I had better luck with the Buckeyes. They were more cooperative and generally easier to make. In the time it took to make three bourbon balls, I could make ten buckeyes and with half the mess. What's not to love?

The morning of the potluck, I was convinced that the buckeyes would be the hit of the party and the bourbon balls were not worth the hassle. Why not just order some? So I was shocked when the bourbon balls turned out to be the hit of the party, overshadowing the more attractive Buckeyes.

I'm still a far way from the perfect candy I envision, but I think the bourbon balls deserve another go and one day they will taste fantastic AND not resemble little chocolate monsters!

For your reference, here is how I modified the original recipe I worked from:

Kentucky Bourbon Balls – My recipe
Filling:
2 ¼ sticks of butter
3 ½ cups of powdered sugar
1 tsp of bourbon flavored vanilla
Bourbon to taste (at least 5-15 tablespoons of Maker’s Mark)

Let butter melt and whip it with the powdered sugar. Add Maker’s Mark and mix once again. Place in fridge for an hour.

Make filling into about one inch balls, stick a tooth pick into each ball, and freeze overnight.

Melt semi-sweet chocolate chips in a double boiler. Once chocolate has melted, remove from fire and let cool a bit (but not too long as it needs to be liquid enough to allow you to dip the bourbon balls). Dip the bourbon balls in chocolate and let cool for a minute or two before pulling out the toothpick; if the bourbon balls are not cool enough, they will disintegrate when you take the toothpick out. Place a pecan on top of the ball to conceal the toothpick mark and decorate. Place in the refrigerator to cool.

Calling all beer snobs...

Recently, I checked out two new meccas for beer aficionados: Againn and ChurchKey.

Againn is DC's newest gastropub. The service is friendly, and the variety of beer, scotch, and bourbon is impressive. The menu opts for traditional British pub fare - fish and chips, pies and stews. Though unassuming, their dishes are excellent.

ChurchKey has an amazing beer selection and unpretentious food, like tater tots and fried mac 'n cheese. The atmosphere is relaxed and fun - I can't wait to go back!