Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my second favorite holiday, right after Christmas. I suppose it's no surprise that my two favorite holidays have a strong focus on food. Mmmmm.

Every year my coed fraternity hosts a big Thanksgiving meal on the Monday before Thanksgiving. We have all the traditional foods, plus whatever else the members feel like making. This year I made candied yams, creamed onions, and angel biscuits. Sadly, no pictures (I really need to get better about that!!), but I'll post the recipes anyway.

Candied Yams
I had never made these before. I read a few different recipes then made it up as I went along. They came out surprisingly well! I received many, many compliments.

Ingredients
5 large yams (about 5 lbs)
1 - 1 1/2 cups light brown sugar (I didn't really measure)
1/2 cup water
1 stick butter
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
pinch ginger
mini marshmallows

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Wash and peel yams. Slice into approximately 1 inch cubes. Bring to a boil in water, the simmer until just barely tender, drain. Spread into buttered 9 x 13 pan, allow to cool.

Prepare a syrup by mixing together the brown sugar, water, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and ginger in a saucepan over medium heat until melted. When the sugar has dissolved, simmer for about 5 minutes until the syrup thickens. Pour the syrup over the yams.

Bake the yams for 20 minutes. Then, cover the top with the marshmallows and bake for an additional 10 minutes or until the marshmallows are lightly browned and gooey. All done!


Creamed Onions
This is possibly my favorite side dish of the big holiday feasts. I can't make them anywhere near as well as my mom does, but I'm working on it. Hopefully some day I'll be able to! I made a lot of these since we were expecting a crowd, but this recipe can absolutely be scaled down to make a side dish. I often make just enough for Charlie and me by using about 10 onions and 1/3 of the cream sauce ingredients.

Ingredients
2-3 lbs pearl or boiler onions, peeled
3 cups whole milk
6 tbsp butter
6 tbsp flour
salt and pepper

Bring onions to a boil in a large pot, then simmer until tender, 10-20 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the sauce. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then whisk in the flour. Whisk until the mixture is very bubbly and light brown. Add the milk. Bring the mixture to a boil and continue whisking. The sauce will thicken, at which point it is done and you can turn off the heat. Drain the onions, reserving some of the water. Add the onions to the sauce and stir gently. If the sauce is too thick, you can add some of the onion water (or some milk) to thin it. Add salt and pepper to taste. Voila!

Let's try again

I decided that it was finally time to make this blog look the way I want it to, in hopes that I'll start posting again. So . . . voila! This is the color scheme I've envisioned since I started Yummies! and it will stay until I get bored with it and decide it's time for another change. I've been cooking a lot now that I'm a college graduate, and I'd like to start recording some of the wonderful recipes I've come across. We'll see how that goes.

Dr. Pepper Texas Chocolate Cake

(Sorry for the less than stellar pictures this time, I was rushing to take them before my friends pounced on the cake.)

This is one of my favorite cakes. The recipe comes from the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in Syracuse, New York. I've never been there, but my parents went and said it was fabulous! My mom picked up a cookbook, and this was the first recipe that caught my eye, so I made it.


The batter comes out very liquidy, but it bakes into a lovely, moist chocolate cake with just a hint of cherry flavor from the Dr. Pepper. Delicious! The frosting is fluffy, and in my experience the recipe makes more than you would want to use. I always have some leftover, even after putting a pretty thick layer in the middle and on the sides and top. I grated a little bit of bittersweet and white chocolate onto the top to decorate a little. Everyone loved the cake.

Montreal!

Last weekend I went to Montreal. It was a lot of fun (and a lot of good food). On Friday night we ate at Thursday's, which was very, very yummy. No pictures, unfortunately. I had steak Parisian style, which came with fries and green beans, all very good. The bread was also delicious. For dessert, I had "Les bananes flambées, rhum appleton et sa glace à l'anis" (Banana flambéed with rum served with anise ice cream). It was also yummy. It was hard to choose a dessert, because everything sounded so delicious.

On Saturday morning (er...afternoon, by the time we were finally up) we went to Chez Cora for breakfast. This place was wonderful. I ordered (I don't remember the menu name) a crêpe with custard and fresh fruit (bananas, grapes, kiwi, peaches, pineapple, and bananas). It was the biggest crêpe I have ever seen in my life. This thing was HUGE! It was also delicious. I didn't manage to finish the whole thing, but I think I would have been a little appalled if I had. It was definitely enough for two people.

C ordered the "Récolte 90," which was french toast made with brioche, an egg over easy, bacon, and lots and lots of fresh fruit (this place was really big on fruit). He also got a yummy smoothie.
Here are more pictures from Chez Cora on a random website I found (it's in French).

Non-Food Related Things
After brunch, C and I went to the Biodome to see animals. I couldn't use flash, so my pictures came out mostly blurry (I do not have a study hand, hence one of the reaons I will never be a surgeon). Here are two that came out okay.
Scarlet Macaws

Spoonbill

I liked this guy. He sat on that branch for a long time while I watched him. Cute. Many, many more pictures on their website. Ahhh, I love animals.

Artichokes!

Artichokes!
Artichokes are my favorite food, and have been for as long as I can remember. I've been waiting for about a month now for some nice ones to show up at the grocery store. Finally, two did.

Beautiful, beautiful steamed artichokes and sauce
I steamed them, which took about 30 minutes. Does everyone know how to prepare an artichoke? They look sort of scary and spiny when you first pick them up. You run them under cold water, then chop off the stem and the pointed lower part. I also trim the points off of the leaves, although I've been told that's not necessary. Then steam them. In my experience, they usually take 45 minutes - 1 hour to cook, but these were fast. Fine by me; I was really hungry. They're done when a leaf can be pulled off easily.

When they were almost done, I started making the sauce:

Closeup of the sauce

The recipe for the sauce comes from my boyfriend's mother. Heat butter in a saucepan over low (I think I used about half a stick for the two of us, which is way more unhealthiness than either of us needs, but it's just so tasty). When almost all of the butter is melted, take the pan off the heat and add an equal amount of mayonnaise. Whip the sauce with a fork. When it is well combined, pour in Heinz 57 Steak Sauce to taste. Yum.

My artichoke! Yum!
I would have taken more pictures as we ate them, but by this point we were very hungry. And they were delicious. Mmmm...

Dec-A-Cookie!

We didn't make the cookies, but we made them pretty.

Look at all those toppings!

All the cookies that didn't get eaten the night before

I made a butterfly! It's a little lopsided

Apparently Nerds only come in a few colors.

Blog Makeover

Slowly but surely getting the hang of this programming stuff.

Not 100% happy with the color scheme, but it will do for now.

Cinnamon Apple French Toast

One of the perks of being home on break is being able to cook for myself. Today I decided to make cinnamon apple french toast.

I sliced one granny smith apple and sauteed the pieces in butter until they were soft and turning brown (about 10 minutes). I stirred the apple slices together with some cinnamon and sugar. I made the french toast batter with one egg, milk, vanilla, nutmeg, and cinnamon. We only had plain white bread, which was fine.




One slice of french toast, topped with the apples, and then the other piece, all drizzled with warmed honey. Served with orange slices and a couple of maraschino cherries. The perfect breakfast!

Truffles II

Everyone loved the first truffles so much, I thought I would try again. I had a lot of extra DBA this term, so I used some up to buy Hershey's special dark chocolate kisses and some semi-sweet chocolate chips. I used the dark chocolate for the middle and the semi-sweet for the coating, and followed the same recipe as before. This time the middle stayed softer, even after refrigeration, and was very, very smooth. I don't know what was different, except for the chocolate, but I preferred these to my first attempt. The middle was slightly more difficult to work with because it was softer, but definitely worth it. Yum!


I also decided to use a different glaze on these. Well, the same powdered-sugar-and-milk glaze, but colored with one drop of blue and one drop of red food coloring. Pretty purple, and yummy truffles.

Truffles!

Yesterday I decided to try my hand at truffles, using this recipe. I have only made truffles once, with my mom, so I was a little nervous about how they would come out. I specifically wanted ones with a chocolate coating, rather than just the filling rolled around in cocoa, which is one of the reasons this recipe appealed to me. Unfortunately, I have zero talent for photography, so my photos do not do them justice. I used Ghiradelli chocolate chips for both the bittersweet and the semisweet chocolate. Instead of covering them with cocoa, I made a glaze with powdered sugar and milk and drizzled that over the top. I was using a ziploc bag, and I think I snipped too much off the corner because the lines are a little wider than I would like. Next time: smaller drizzle, and also I will color it slightly pink or light purple, just for fun. I also used chambord instead of brandy because, well, I like it. Also, the coating does not have the correct "snap" since I lack a candy thermometer. Still, they are rich, smooth, and sweet, with just a hint of raspberry from the chambord. Very, very yummy.



Alton Brown's Chocolate Truffles
10 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped fine
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
1/4 cup brandy
1/2 cup Dutch process cocoa powder, finely chopped nuts, and/or toasted coconut, for coating truffles
8 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped fine

Place the 10 ounces of chocolate and butter in a medium size glass mixing bowl. Microwave for 30 seconds. Remove and stir, and repeat this process 1 more time. Set aside.
Heat the heavy cream and corn syrup in a small saucepan over medium heat until simmering. Remove from the heat and pour the mixture over the melted chocolate mixture; let stand for 2 minutes. Using a rubber spatula, stir gently, starting in the middle of bowl and working in concentric circles until all chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth and creamy. Gently stir in the brandy. Pour the mixture into an 8 by 8-inch glass baking dish and place in the refrigerator for 1 hour.

Using a melon baller, scoop chocolate onto a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and return to the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Place the cocoa powder, nuts, and/or toasted coconut each in its own in pie pan and set aside.

In the meantime, place the 8 ounces of chocolate into a medium mixing bowl which is sitting on top of a heating pad lined bowl, with the heating pad set to medium. Depending on the heating pad, you may need to adjust the heat up or down. Stirring the chocolate occasionally, test the temperature of the chocolate and continue heating until it reaches 90 to 92 degrees F; do not allow the chocolate to go above 94 degrees F. If you do, the coating will not have a nice snap to it when you bite into the chocolate. Once you have reached the optimal temperature, adjust the heat to maintain it.

Remove the truffles from the refrigerator and shape into balls by rolling between the palms of your hands. Use powder-free vinyl or latex gloves if desired.

Dip an ice cream scoop into the chocolate and turn upside down to remove excess chocolate. Place truffles 1 at time into the scoop and roll around until coated. Then place the truffle into the dish with either the cocoa powder, nuts or coconut. Move the truffle around to coat; leave truffle in the coating for 10 to 15 seconds before removing. In the meantime, continue placing the chocolate-coated truffles in the cocoa or other secondary coating. After 10 to 15 seconds, remove the truffle to a parchment lined sheet pan. Repeat until all truffles are coated. Allow to set in a cool dry place for at least 1 hour; or store in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Truffles are best when served at room temperature.

Edit: A later thought: I could make these in multiple flavors with different drizzles over the top to differentiate. For example, some with a hazelnut filling (add some frangelico?) with a milk chocolate drizzle. Or mint, with white chocolate chips instead of the bittersweet, a little mint extract, and a green drizzle. The possibilities are endless! Yum yum!

Welcome

This is a place I will come to write about food. Probably mostly about recipes I find that are good and foods I try that are yummy. I love reading food blogs, and especially looking at pictures. Unfortunately, I have very little talent for blogging, so this is likely to be a collection of notes just for me. So, anyway, welcome! Won't you join me?