Old Chicago (Plus Gingerbread Muffins), December 2, 2017

The wife suggested an early dinner before Christmas shopping on Saturday. We'd fortified ourselves with gingerbread muffins I made in the morning and a little nibble of lunch, but sure didn't want any hangry grumpiness to mar our fun excursion. I thought pizza sounded good and was glad she agreed. So, off to Old Chicago we went. This location is fairly new and has previously left a whole lot to be desired, service-wise. The pizza was okay, though, so we hoped the service issues were ironed out.

The kitchen has certainly gotten faster, but, man, the service still lacks finesse. The young man who served us was, I suppose, pleasant enough, but he didn't strike me as particularly ept. I'm finding, in general, that much of the service in Colorado, is a bit on the relaxed side.

However, the boneless wings were serviceable and the artichoke bread quite tasty. You should have seen Wee Boy when he tasted it! I guess that means I should definitely make my artichoke dip for our annual tree-trimming celebration. My Chicago 7 pizza (think "supreme") on their ale crust was yummy, although I will probably get the thin crust next time. Wee Boy thought it was lots better than his plain sausage kids' pizza, especially the green pepper bits! Have to remember that for future visits! Sadly, the margherita pizza my wife ordered fell far short of expectations. We were assured that it truly was fresh mozzarella on the pizza, and that it just isn't spread all over the pizza. It was, in fact, spread over far more of the pizza than it should have been and was not like any fresh mozzarella we've seen. Perhaps they define "fresh mozzarella" as "not stale mozzarella." Anyway, it was basically a cheese pizza with a few tomato slices and a smattering of basil. My wife sent it back, as it wasn't what she wanted, and took over Wee Boy's pizza, instead. While I definitely prefer Ben's Brick Oven Pizza to Old Chicago, it's closer and the food is fine. I would never send someone there on purpose, but neither would I dissuade them.

Oh, and if you'd like to make some gingerbread muffins at your house, here's the recipe. I make them often, especially in December. If you don't already have a traditional Christmas morning sweet, these are perfect. Thank Nigella Lawson, who developed the recipe.

Gingerbread Muffins

1 2/3 c. flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

1 1/2 tsp. ginger

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. cloves

1 egg

1/3 c. dark brown sugar

1/3 c. light brown sugar

3/4 c. milk

1/4 tsp. balsamic vinegar

6 tbsp. oil

4 tbsp. dark corn syrup

4 tbsp. molasses

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix the dry ingredients together. Whisk the egg, then add the sugars to it. By the way, I only had dark brown sugar this last time I made these and it was stellar with all dark. Add milk and vinegar to egg mixture. Add oil, corn syrup, and molasses. Add egg mixture to flour mixture. Stir to mix, leaving it fairly lumpy. Place in muffin cups (I use cupcake papers when I make them) and bake 20 minutes, until tops are dry. Nigella notes that they'll still feel a bit "squidgy." Cool on racks. Makes a dozen. 

Cut-Out Cookies for Tanya

As we have a new baby, Elijah, who was born November 5th, I don't know if I'll manage cut-out cookies this year. Perhaps! I did manage some chocolate rum balls yesterday, so who knows? But, my friend, Tanya, asked if I happen to have a recipe for them and I do. I've never had a problem with it and it tastes quite yummy! This is the recipe I always use when I make cut-outs:

Cut-Out Cookies

4 c. flour

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking powder

2 sticks butter, room temperature

2 c. sugar

2 eggs, room temperature

1 tbsp. + 1 tsp. vanilla (you can use other flavors, too---I like a mix of citrus fruit juice, especially at Easter)

Sift the dry ingredients into a large bowl. Cream the butter and sugar until light yellow and fluffy. Beat in eggs. Add flour, with speed set on low, and mix until well-combined. Add vanilla. Form into 2 disks and wrap in plastic. Chill half an hour. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Roll dough out to about 1/8" thick, on a floured surface, one disk at a time. Cut out with cookie cutters and place on ungreased baking sheets. Chill about 15 minutes, so they're nice & firm. You can decorate them with sanding sugar before baking, if you want. Otherwise, use your favorite icing once they're baked. I like royal icing for these, but plain old powdered sugar icing is great, too. Anyway, bake these until the edges just start to brown, 8-10 minutes. Cool on wire racks before decorating. These are also good without any icing, sanding sugar, or anything. Makes about 30 2 1/2" cookies---or 15 larger ones. 

Christmas Dinner with the Kids, December 28, 2014

Jeannene's dad, Travis, was a lover of all things red meat and a wonderful cook. He always made some kind of fabulous beef dish for Christmas dinner: beef Wellington, filet mignon, prime rib. I always defer to Jeannene on Christmas dinner for the family and she chooses one of her dad's favorites to prepare. I supplement with whatever I feel I can add to what she's making. We very often have baked potatoes on the side, but this year, she switched it up and delighted us all. It's not that I don't love baked potatoes, but it was fun to have something different. For our Christmas Sunday dinner with the kids tonight, once they'd gotten back from visiting Bubbles' family in Cleveland, Jeannene picked up a gorgeous prime rib roast at Nino Salvaggio's grocery in Troy and rubbed it with salt and pepper, allowing it to stand for a couple of hours with its rub before roasting it medium-rare.

On the side, she fried up a variety of handmade pierogies with butter and onions. We got the pierogies at Nino Salvaggio's, as well. We had cheddar, sauerkraut, and mushroom varieties. I liked the kraut the best, while the kids really dug the mushroom version and Jeannene liked the cheddar. For our vegetable, Jeannene steamed some broccoli and served it with hollandaise sauce.

I usually make my Tuscan kale salad for festive occasions in our house, but I was in the mood to try something different. The salad I came up with was a delicious show-stopper. I would cheerfully serve it at a fancy dinner party, but I would also sit on the couch in my pajamas, with a bowl of it for breakfast.

Fennel, Apple, and Orange Salad

2 bulbs fennel, cut into thin demi-lunes (you don't need the stalks)

2 oranges, peeled & diced

2 small Granny Smith apples, diced (peels on)

1 small Pink Lady apple, diced (peel on)

1/3 c. excellent quality extra-virgin olive oil

Juice of 1 lemon

Salt & pepper

7 Medjool dates, roughly chopped

Toss fennel, oranges, & apples together. Chill. Whisk oil, lemon juice, salt, & pepper together until thickened. Toss with salad. Serve with dates for garnish. I don't advise adding the dates to the salad, but to individual portions, as the dates can get unpleasantly gooey if there are leftovers. Serves 6-8. 

A Cuban-Style Nochebuena Feast

Since both of our boys spent Christmas with their girlfriends' families out of state, we decided to have a traditional Cuban Nochebuena dinner, usually enjoyed on Christmas Eve, for our Christmas Day dinner. Before I started work in the church, I made this dinner on Christmas Eve, but had bumped it to different days, depending on the year. It works beautifully as a Christmas Day dinner.

It being just the two of us, it wouldn't make sense to roast a whole pig like they do in many Miami backyards on Christmas Eve. So, I did a pork roast, black beans & rice, maduros (fried ripe plantains), and avocado & onion salad. We had a local oddity called Bumpy Cake for dessert. It's kind of like a Ho Ho Cake.

This pork roast is fabulous, but if you're vegetarian or vegan, the mojo marinade would be really good for tofu, as well.

Puerco Asado

A 5-lb. boneless pork loin
5 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp. oregano
Salt & pepper
1/4 c. lime juice
1/4 c. orange juice
1/4 c. olive oil
1 c. dry red wine
A few bay leaves

The morning you are going to cook this, piece the pork roast all over with a knife. Mash the garlic, oregano, salt, & pepper into a paste. Rub it all over the pork roast. Place in a gallon zipper storage bag or nonreactive dish/pan. Pour the juices, oil, and wine over it. Add the bay leaves. Cover the dish/pan or seal the bag. Let marinate a minimum of 2 hours (all day is better), making sure to turn the roast several times during the marinating time. Preheat oven to 350 degree. Remove roast from marinade and pat dry. Reserve the marinade for later, but discard the bay leaves. Roast the meat to an internal temperature of 150 degrees, about 2 hours, pouring marinade over it halfway through the cooking time and basting frequently for the second half of the cooking time. When finished, allow to stand 10-15 minutes, tented with foil, before slicing. Serves 8. (Leftovers can be employed in Cuban sandwiches, with ham, swiss, & pickles.)

I am too lazy to use dried black beans and always use canned. I sometimes really cheat, when I can find Goya black bean soup, and just heat it up. For special occasions, though, this is the recipe I like:

Cuban Black Beans

1/3 c. olive oil (Spanish, if you have it)

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 small onion, minced

1 green pepper, chopped

32 oz. canned black beans, with their liquid

1/2 c. beef broth (vegetarians & vegans can omit or sub veggie broth)

1 tsp. cumin

A few dashes of hot sauce, if desired

2-3 tbsp. apple cider vinegar

Salt & pepper

Chopped onion for garnish

Heat oil in pan, then add garlic, onion, and pepper until they are softened. Add the rest and cook another 20 minutes or so. Serve with onions for garnish and cooked long-grain white rice. Serves 8.

Maduros (Fried Ripe Plantains)

4 very ripe plantains (skin should be entirely black---this takes time, so unless you can find black plantains at the grocery, you'll want to buy the green ones 2-3 weeks ahead), sliced on the diagonal

Oil for frying

Salt

Heat an inch of oil in a large skillet until it sizzles. Place one layer of plantain slices in the oil and fry until browned. Turn over and cook until browned on the other side. Remove from pan to a paper-towel-lined plate. Salt. Keep warm in a 200 degree oven until all plantains are fried and you are ready to eat. Serves 8. Plantains are also delicious baked, so if you don't want to fry them, you can bake them 20-25 minutes in a preheated 350 degree oven. 

Avocado & Onion Salad

Butter lettuce (or, if your wife prefers romaine, as mine does, do that)

4 avocados, sliced or diced

1/2 sweet onion, thinly sliced into demi-lunes

Salt & pepper

1/2 c. (more or less) olive oil (again, Spanish is preferred)

Juice of 1 lemon or 2-3 limes

Arrange the lettuce in salad bowls or on a platter. Place avocado and onion atop the lettuce. Whisk salt, pepper, oil, and vinegar together. Drizzle over the salad. Serves 8. 

Christmas Breakfast

When I was growing up, we would often make a Christmas Eve run to Young's Dairy for pecan sticky rolls to have in the morning. My mom and I would also make eggs and a basil potato pancake to complement the sweetness of the rolls and stocking candy we inevitably got into along with our stocking oranges. One of my favorite Christmas breakfasts, at my almost-grandma's house in St. Petersburg, Florida, included orange juice squeezed that morning from fruit we picked in her back yard.

As a young woman, I continued to spend Christmas with my mom, stepdad, and almost-grandma. My almost-grandma and my mom made stollen every year, a tradition from my almost-grandma's side of the family. We also had eggs & the potato pancake.

Since I began spending Christmases at home with Jeannene, 13 Christmases now, we've had a breakfast casserole I can pop in the crockpot before bed on Christmas Eve. We awake with breakfast already prepared and all I have to do is make our sweet. I've done cinnamon coffee cake, cheater sweet rolls, and stollen. But ever since I came across Paula Deen's recipe for gorilla bread and tried it, that has been our go-to sweet treat Christmas morning. If you like monkey bread (another of my almost-grandma's favorites), this is the same thing, amped up with cream cheese. Decadent, for certain! The first time I made it, Jeannene said, "That is a food group of its own. And it is elevated above all food groups."

Christmas Crockpot Breakfast

32 oz. frozen hash browns

1 lb ham (diced) or sausage (browned)

1 onion, diced (I just threw in a handful of minced, dried onion this year and it was great)

1 green pepper, diced (optional)

2 c. shredded cheddar

12 eggs

1 c. milk

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. pepper

Layer first 5 ingredients in a crockpot. Beat eggs with milk & seasonings. Pour over layers in crockpot. Cook about 10 hours on low. 

Gorilla Bread

1/2 c. sugar

3 tsp. cinnamon

1 stick butter

1 c. brown sugar

8 oz. cream cheese, cut into 20 cubes

2 (10 count each) tubes whomp biscuits (as Jill Conner Browne describes them, on account of you whomp 'em against the counter to open 'em)

1 1/2 c. chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a Bundt pan with cooking spray. Mix the cinnamon & white sugar. Melt the butter with the brown sugar over low heat. Sprinkle each biscuit with 1/2 tsp. cinnamon sugar and then seal a cube of cream cheese in each. Sprinkle 1/2 cup of the nuts into the Bundt pan. Add half the biscuits. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and pour half the butter-brown sugar mixture over the top. Repeat, starting & ending with nuts. Bake half an hour to 45 minutes. Cool 5 minutes before inverting into a plate. Serves 12-15.