use real butter

Busy hands! I am keeping off the streets as there is way too much to get done. I’ve been sewing, growing, making, baking, slicing, dicing…

knitting and sewing

forcing paperwhites

making tags

slicing orange peels

We don’t even celebrate Christmas and I’m quickly going insane over here. While we tell everyone not to give us stuff and we don’t give others stuff, I can’t very well explain this to my 9-year old nephew and my 5-year old niece. Each year I rack my brain trying to come up with something handmade to give them because I think gift-giving is on steroids these days. I used to worry that they wouldn’t care much for my gifts because they get SO MUCH STUFF. They received a lot when my sister was alive, but it really got out of control after she died.

The last time I saw the kids, I was tucking my nephew into bed and he asked me to get his spaceship from the bottom bunk. I saw the plush spaceship pillow I had made for him the year before and handed it up to his outstretched hands. “Hey,” I said, “didn’t I make that?” He hugged it to his chest and nodded, “Uh huh, it’s my favorite.” I smiled and kissed him goodnight. Then I went down to the basement and quietly cried my eyes out.

In the interest of time and sanity, I kept it simple this year and went with custom stockings that will be filled with all sorts of little goodies and educational doodads (plus a cool book for each child). I need to expand my crafts repertoire…

fleece and fuzz for him

fleece and crazy fur for her (she likes pink, okay?)

It doesn’t end there. I do make a point of sending homemade goodies to certain people each year - folks whose hard work we appreciate (or not, in the case of the post office - but who wants to piss off the local post office who handles your mail?). I have an enormous list of sweets and treats and I’m about halfway through. Timing is everything since I’m waiting for the paperwhites to grow tall enough to be presentable and cookies won’t keep for too long before going stale. Some recipients will consume their goodies right away, while others might not get them for a week or more. I have a bloody spreadsheet for who is getting what and when.

hard and soft vanilla bean caramels

I’ll post the caramels another day when my fury has abated. My double batch of candied orange peels are drying now, to be dipped in chocolate later. I made some peppermint bark yesterday, and while I was swearing like a sailor Jeremy quipped, “I seem to recall you saying you’d never make this again the last time you made this.” I have in fact said that about several confections (chocolate-dipped strawberries, petits fours glacés, and candied orange peels to name a few). The problem with confections is that people love them and so I can’t help but make them.

candy canes for smashing

sifting smashed bits

Peppermint bark is actually very easy to make. The reason I hate making it is because I always try to temper the chocolate only to realize after the fact that it isn’t tempered and it doesn’t matter. Instead of smashing the peppermint candy canes or peppermint starlight candies, I suggest using a food processor. I’ve tried smashing them in ziploc bags with hammers or rolling pins, only to put dents in tables, counter tops, rolling pins, and silpats. Once the peppermint is crushed, I sift the powdery bits out from the larger pieces.

spread melted dark chocolate

chopped white chocolate

I used Guittard semi-sweet chocolate chips. They are my favorite chocolate chips. For peppermint bark, I don’t tend to use the best chocolate I have in my cupboard. Valrhona and Callebaut are saved for things like truffles, flourless chocolate cake, or chocolate soufflé. For the white chocolate, I had some compound Ghirardelli on hand. I am not fond of white chocolate, but of the few I’ve worked with and tasted, I like Callebaut the best.

stirring in the pulverized candy cane dust

layer the white chocolate mixture

After spreading a nice and even layer of melted dark chocolate on a silpat, I placed it in the refrigerator because I’m impatient. I then stirred the candy cane dust/sand into the melted (and cooled) white chocolate. If you stir too much, the whole thing turns pink, so a few folds should be good. Mine still turned pinkish. I suppose you could stir it into the dark chocolate, but because I hate white chocolate, the sandy bits make it more tolerable to me. I then poured and spread the mixture over the cooled dark chocolate and sprinkled the peppermint chunks over the white chocolate layer.

almost done

It helps to press the candy chunks into the white chocolate so that the peppermint bark doesn’t shed candy as much. Let the bark cool completely before breaking or else it won’t break cleanly. Also, I recommend wearing a glove with plastic over it when breaking up the pieces so that 1) your body heat doesn’t melt the chocolate and 2) you don’t leave your finger prints on the chocolate.

distribute

Peppermint Bark

1 lb dark chocolate, chopped
1 lb white chocolate, chopped
12 peppermint candy canes, crushed (about 1 cup)

Melt the dark chocolate and pour onto a jelly roll pan lined with aluminum foil or a silpat. Spread evenly to desired thickness. Place in refrigerator to harden. Sift peppermint candy to separate the large chunks from the peppermint sand. Melt the white chocolate. When cooled, fold the peppermint sand into the white chocolate taking care not to overmix (and getting pink chocolate instead). Remove dark chocolate from the refrigerator and spread the white chocolate on top. Sprinkle the peppermint chunks evenly over the white chocolate and gently press the pieces into the layer. Refrigerate until hardened. Break the bark into pieces.

We got over a foot of snow this weekend, which makes for a happy Jen. Catching some bloody 24-hour flu bug was not so happy-making, but I kicked it by 2:00 this morning and we were on the slopes by 8:30 am. Wow! There was a lot of snow and some wacky conditions. I got up close and personal with the snow several times.

the morning scene at the hill

shortly after i shot this picture, i bit it big time

After skiing, there is nothing like coming home and having a hot, steaming bowl of soup. I had a whole pot of soup at the ready because I made green chile stew yesterday from my leftover turkey carcass.

make turkey stock

The stock isn’t a necessary part of the stew recipe, but it is a necessary part of my turkey because I love homemade broth. I typically pile the main carcass, the wings, the drumstick and thigh bones into my crock pot and cover with water. Then I just set the pot on high for 8 hours and come back to lovely broth. When the broth cools, I defat it the same way I defatted the turkey drippings via ziploc bag. Then I pick any turkey meat off the bones and combine it with leftover turkey to total about a pound of meat.

new mexican red chiles

My recipe for green chile stew comes from a good friend of mine in New Mexico. It calls for a pound of meat and you can use beef, pork, or chicken. We just happened to have a lot of bleeping turkey in the house. Instead of water, I used my homemade turkey broth. The recipe also calls for using a few New Mexican red chiles if using canned green chiles. I love the red chiles, so I tossed those in, even though I have the real deal on the green chiles.

simmer turkey meat with red chiles

I like to rip the tops off the red chiles and shake out all of the seeds while they are dry. After simmering them in the turkey broth with the meat for an hour, I removed the red chiles and scraped the “meat” from the skins. Then I chopped the chile meat into a paste and returned it to the pot.

scooping off the good stuff

For the roasted green chiles, I pulled off the skins, cut off the tops, and scraped out the seeds. I can’t stand getting a mouthful of seeds in my stew. A quick dice and they were ready for the stew.

skinning roasted green chiles

adding all of the vegetables to the broth

In addition to the chiles, the stew is loaded with potatoes, onions, and garlic. It has a soupy consistency, but you can simmer it down to be as thick or thin as you like. The hotness will depend on how spicy your chiles are. Jeremy loves to eat a bowl of green chile stew with a warm flour tortilla for dipping.

hot and spicy après ski

New Mexican Green Chile Stew

1 lb lean beef round, pork or chicken
4 medium potatoes, diced
5 cloves garlic, minced
6 roasted green chile peppers (Hatch), skinned, deseeded, diced
2 medium onions, minced
2 tsps salt
3 red chiles (New Mexico) if using canned green chilis

Cube meat, boil in water with red chiles for one hour. Remove red chiles from pot and deseed (I deseed when they are dry) and scrape off chile meat. Mince and return to pot (discard skins and seeds). Add potatoes, onions, garlic, salt, green chiles and enough water to cover. Bring to boil and then simmer for at least 40 minutes. Continue to add water if necessary. It will have a soupy consistency.

Thanksgiving is about food, loved ones, and giving thanks. We have the food in spades, loved ones too - although we’re not with friends or family today. And then there is the thanks. I have a lot to be thankful for.

I got my breast cancer diagnosis just over a year ago, right before Thanksgiving. We were waiting for biopsy results and so Thanksgiving was a bit of a bust. While we had a quiet holiday that year - just me, Jeremy, and the dog - the uncertainty of our future and of my life hung heavily over the day. There was no point in crying, no point in making any plans because all we could do was wait and keep a level head about it. It was surreal, but at the same time I would rather it be me than anyone else I cared about. My treatments turned the past year on its head. Jeremy and I forged through it together, but chemotherapy was an incredibly isolating, dismal, freakish experience: physically, emotionally. While I pride myself in my ability to reach from within for the strength to plod through shitty times, I could not have gotten through it on my own.

I thank every day that I have Jeremy in my life. I will be forever grateful to those loved ones who were there for me when I needed them most. I’m thankful for my tele betties who gave me something to look forward to each week when I began my chemo. I’m thankful for my awesome physicians, nurses, radiation techs, and PT. I’m thankful for the incredible friends I have made (and even met!) through this blog and for all of the use real butter readers who make me laugh and cry and laugh some more. And lastly, I am thankful to be alive and relatively well. Well enough to hit the slope today…

getting my tele legs back this morning

happy thanksgiving, everyone!

I say “slope” instead of “slopes” because our local hill has only ONE run on the big mountain open right now. Slim pickins as far as snow goes, but we’re getting a little snow over the holiday weekend. Anyway, skiing is the reason I made turkey dinner on Monday, because I didn’t want to babysit a turkey today. I’d rather ski than roast a turkey any day. But a girl has gotta eat, right?

we started with some grilled prosciutto-wrapped shrimp

and then sake (salmon) sashimi

One of our favorite rolls at Sushi Tora is their tora no maki roll. It combines creamy and crunchy textures, sweet and salty flavors, and cool and warm temperatures all in one delectable bite. Today was the first time we made the roll at home.

it’s an inside-out roll

sake (salmon), unagi (eel), avocado

The assembly is much easier than the not so special roll because there isn’t any mixing required. After spreading the rice on part of one side of the nori, Jeremy flipped the sheet over and layered avocado, salmon, and masago (flying fish roe). He rolled it up in a sheet of plastic wrap and a bamboo mat so it’s compact and generally cylindrical in shape.

filling the roll

roll it up

After unwrapping the roll, we set a layer of unagi on top of the roll, covered it with the plastic wrap, and pressed it again with the bamboo mat. I typically like to keep the plastic on when I slice the roll - it keeps things from getting unbelievably messy. Then when I’m done slicing, I just peel the plastic off. The one thing I have not been able to find in stores is the sauce that sushi chefs always brush on barbecued eel. So I finally went searching through my two Japanese cookbooks and found a sauce that I could make at home. SCORE!

placing the unagi on top of the roll

brushing on the sweetness

The toro no maki was fantastic and we had enough unagi to make two rolls. I feel as if I’ve achieved a small victory though, because I can now make my own sauce for the eel which goes beautifully with tons of other sushi like tamago and tempura. Yipeee!!!

turkey day, my way

Tora No Maki Sushi Roll

4 cups cooked, seasoned sushi rice
1 package of sheet nori
1/2 lb. sake (salmon), sliced into 1/2-inch thick strips
1 lb. unagi (eel), sliced into 1-inch strips
8 tbsp masago (flying fish roe)
1 ripe avocado, peeled, pitted, and sliced
eel sauce
toasted sesame seeds
wasabi
soy sauce
gari (pickled ginger)

eel sauce
6 tbsps soy sauce
4 tbsps mirin
2 tbsps brown sugar (or caramelized sugar syrup)
dash of rice wine vinegar

To make the eel sauce: Combine ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to boil. Let boil for a minute or so and reduce to simmer until slightly thickened. Let cool (it will thicken some more, so don’t boil it down too much).

Assembly: On a sheet of plastic wrap, set down one sheet of nori. With wet hands, grab a handful of sushi rice and evenly spread across the top 3/5 of the nori sheet, pressing the rice down to ensure it sticks to the seaweed. Flip the nori over so that the rice faces down onto the plastic wrap. At the non-rice end of the nori, lay out salmon, avocado, and masago, leaving a little room on either end. Take care not to overfill the roll. Roll the fillings up from the non-rice end of the nori (like a carpet) and continue to roll tightly, but not too tightly until the rice encompasses the entire outer part of the roll. Use the plastic wrap to help maintain shape without letting the roll stick to you. Use the bamboo mat to firm up the shape and compact the roll. Remove the bamboo mat and the plastic wrap from the roll. Heat the eel in an oven until very warm. Place a single layer of eel on top of the roll and then cover with plastic wrap and bamboo mat to press the eel to the roll. Remove the bamboo mat. Slice through the plastic wrap with a very sharp knife dipped in water, to get 8 even pieces. Brush eel sauce on top of the pieces and garnish with sesame seeds. Serve with wasabi, gari (pickled ginger), and soy sauce. This should yield 4 cut rolls.