Now Christmas comes, 'tis fit that we should feast and sing, and merry be:" 1766 Virginia Almanack

Even when I am sick and overwhelmed by schoolwork I can't help but enjoy the holidays that come bunched together like holly on the branch, bright and red and yes, poisonous (if you let them get to you). First we have Thanksgiving which is a holiday dedicated to eating and family and being together. Then we have Christmas, which means presents. Let's not talk about the religious aspects or the commercialization of it, let's just think about spending time with people you love and getting gifts and eating food.

Because my mother is getting married on December 27th in South Carolina we are going to spend Christmas with her. This means that I will be spending the holiday away from my boyfriend, who doesn't like Christmas anyway, but is sad that I won't be spending it with him. Where is the logic in this? I don't know. Anyway, my dad and my stepmom are spending Christmas in Yorkshire with her sister's family so I thought we should do an early Christmas, and exchange gifts. While taking a break from reading for school I watched "The Barefoot Contessa" and her holiday dish making got me thinking.

Here is my proposed menu:

Chicken with Goat Cheese and Basil

Mashed Carrots (the boyfriend had these at a friend's recently and loved them)

Poundcake Trifle with Raspberries Ina's recipe calls for orange in the pound cake and the cream but I hate orange unless it's the fruit or the juice, so I will do without. Maybe some zest. That's it, Ina! Maybe I'll do them individually. I don't know.

Anyway, I think this sounds pretty great. Maybe I'll do wild rice too. I made about a gallon of turkey broth from a cooked turkey my roommate was given by her boss. That would be delicious with wild rice.

Quick Update

1. I just discovered my roommate has a bread maker. Fresh bread here I come! Once I figure out how the thing works.

2. I'm writing a paper on Proust's use of food. Combining two of my favorite things (food+books) is smart!

3. Can't wait for Thanksgiving! I'm making pumpkin baklava and two kinds of mashed sweet potatoes. One with marshmallows because my dad can't go without and one with candied pecans for the grown ups.

4. May have mastered polenta.

5. Suckered Julia into making bread for me today (this was before we discovered the bread maker)

6. It's leftovers week, thankfully I have some delicious leftovers, which will be complimented by beans and rice.

7. Next time I cook for Ian I want to make duck. Julie from Julie/Julia recommends it.

C is for Cookie, which isn't good enough for me. Yet.

Baking newbie mishap.

I confused baking powder with baking soda. Yes. This is actually the first time such a thing has happened in my kitchen, and since I am just baking because I was dying for some butterscotch chip cookies and not for any specific reason I am treating it as a curious and surprising phenomena, rather than the tragedy it would obviously be otherwise. Now I have about 24 butterscotch chip cookies that are the exact same shape as when I dropped them onto the cookie sheet. For any of you who has not made this mix up, I just figured out what soda does and what powder does. You would think, you would, that they pretty much do similar things. But no. Apparently baking soda allows them to start that lovely spreading process that usually results in my cookies becoming conjoined at the side. And baking powder? I guess it helps them get a cake like consistency?

The benefit is that they aren't too bad. They aren't great. They're more like 2/3 of what they should be. But at least they're edible. Which is more than I can say for the dry, cracker like sugar cookies I made the other day. This baking business is serious stuff. I'm going to have to BRING IT.

WEEKEND UPDATE!

HI! SO I JUST GOT REOBSESSED WITH COOKING!

Whew. Maybe it's just the fall season (which means THANKSGIVING!) or maybe it's the fact that I've got more free time and $$ but I've been cooking like crazy

This weekend I made

1) Chicken curry with coconut that was exactly what I'd been dreaming of (ok, so I let the quinoa get too mushy)

2) Chocolate chip cookies, that I proceeded to snack on for the rest of the weekend.

And I watched a lot of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (it counts!).

Tonight (while continuing the Kitchen Nightmares) I made

Acorn squash soup. It had coconut milk in it (sorry Austin, it was great)

Roasted chicken. It was delicious, but while cutting into it, some of the hot juice squirted and hit me right up the nose. FUCK that hurt!

Lastly, I made sugar cookies with chocolate sandwiched between them.

I plan to drop some of these off at my office tomorrow and for them to love me from tomorrow on. It will work. I promise.

Now, I'm going to go to bed and sleep off some of the Table Red I procured for tonight's dinner.

Fuck, my boyfriend will love these cookies when he tries some.

The beet is the most intense of vegetables. -Tom Robbins

Tonight I'm making: Beet Tofu Burgers

Apple Upside-Down Cake (minus the cornmeal called for in this. Yuck.)

Don't you wish you were eating with me?

Little Known Fact: In Turkey Baklava Was Considered an Aphrodisiac

Note: Not actual phyllo dough, rose petals, which do look like the flaky dough

While kissing my boyfriend this morning my eye happened to be caught by “How It’s Made.” It pretty much runs on repeat at his place and I find myself talking about one thing, getting distracted by what they’re making and crying out, “I’ve always wondered how golf balls are made!” completely forgetting whatever else I was talking about.
Today I happened to be distracted from some major cuddling by the episode where they show how phyllo dough is made. It was kissing, kissing, oh, sheets of phyllo! Pumpkin baklava time! And just like that, my boyfriend lost out on a few kisses and lucked into a whole tray of my invented pumpkin baklava.
It came to me in a dream, I told my friends as I displayed my trial results. I was lying there, partially asleep, only awake enough for my thoughts to half make sense when I thought about pumpkin pie and Thanksgiving’s impending arrival. Then I thought about pecan pie and for some reason, baklava. In my sleep they all got jumbled together. I wondered if pecans and pumpkin would taste good in the same dish. Then I wondered if you could modify baklava to add anything else to it. And then it hit me! Put the pumpkin in between phyllo dough sheets! Use pecans instead of pistachios!

I made up a sheet of them and some fresh whipped cream, then took it over to a friend’s house. Everyone loved them, even the friend who was at first hesitant to try. And since then, they’ve become a staple of the Thanksgiving ritual. Except, this is the year Julia decides to go vegan, which means I get to play around again and come up with a pumpkin pie filler that does not include milk or eggs, and to test the possibility of margarine to substitute for the butter I use on the phyllo layers.
I might even try my hand at making my own phyllo dough.

I'll be checking out recipes from here: FatFree Vegan
and here: Miss Mavyn's Vegan Blog

Alert thisiswhyyourefat.com

Microwaved Swiss rolls topped with Vanilla Bean ice cream isn't as great as you'd imagine it to be... in case you were wondering.