The traditional ginger bread house can be as simple as four walls and a roof stuck together with icing. If you're looking for something more spectacular, check out "The Gingerbread Architect" by Susan Matheson and Lauren Chattman, authors who recreate 12 iconic American homes -- from a Greek Revival antebellum plantation gingerbread house to an urban brownstone. Jennifer Lindner McGlinn gives instructions on a Betsy Ross gingerbread house and a gingerbread church in her book "Gingerbread: Timeless Recipes for Cakes, Cookies, Desserts, Ice Cream and Candy."
Wendy Copley shares her tips for making the gingerbread house shown above on her blog Wendolonia. Get started with AOL Food's gingerbread house recipe.
Proving once again that the holiday season seems to start earlier every year, one woman claims to have found Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in her pork chop.
Sue Church stopped by WGHP-TV in High Point, N.C., on Tuesday with a pork chop that she thinks resembles the reindeer made famous by the Johnny Marks song.
What do you think? Is it Rudolph? And have you ever seen an image in your food? Let us know in the comments below.
As anybody who's ever gone camping can attest, cooking in an unfamiliar environment can be a real chore. Pre-planning meals, carefully choosing ingredients based on weight and convenience, and foraging for fresh ingredients can tax anyone's patience. Add in a forgotten spice or a broken cooking implement, and you have a recipe for misery.
Still, as hard as it can be to find oneself on the trail with insufficient foodstuffs, these miseries are nothing compared to the total annoyance of floating thousands of miles above the surface of the earth, trying to cadge together a palatable cuisine out of preserved Russian and American meats and veggies. While the space program brought us delicacies like freeze-dried ice cream and Tang, it is also responsible for sausage in a tube and irradiated bread!
But, as Astronaut Sandy Magnus demonstrates in this blog, the possibilities of space cuisine are limitless ... as long as one packs enough dehydrated sausage and sun-dried tomatoes!
Just a few days ago, I noted my love for highly specific food traditions, tied to holidays and celebrations -- hoppin' john on New Year's Day, king cake on Mardi Gras, mint juleps on Derby Day. So, it seemed foolhardy not to avail myself of a Moravian Love Feast bun when I had the chance, seeing as how I was in North Carolina, and my in-laws have been attending the Christmas Eve Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church's Love Feast since back when Rudolph was a fawn. I'm not, by habit, a churchgoing gal, but was assured that all (even long-lapsed Catholic school girls like me) are welcome to share in the ritual.
What the heck is a Love Feast, you ask? Well, according to North Carolina and Old Salem Cookery (1955):
No church service is more distinctive than a Moravian love feast. Love feasts are held in connection with holidays such as Christmas, New Year's, Easter and on days of special significance to the church such as church anniversaries and a day set aside to honor missionaries.
During the love feast, each person in the church receives a large, flat yeast bun and a mug of coffee containing cream and sugar.
The love feast is symbolic of the fellowship of the church. The idea behind the simple meal is that those who break bread together are united in the fellowship the way a family is.
While there are regional variations in the components of the feast -- some congregations subbing in warm cider or hot Russian tea for the coffee, or embossing an "M" on the bun tops, rather than the Moravian star seen in the image above -- the recipe invariably calls for the inclusion of mashed potatoes. As a choir or orchestra performs, the buns are passed in baskets throughout the congregation, followed by cups of the hot beverage. After these have been collected, beeswax candles -- decorated with red paper frills to catch dripping -- are distributed to the assembled, lit from wick to wick, and carried in procession out of the church.
I do most of my cocktail inventing around the holidays. The reason for this is twofold. One, I always visit my parents and they possess a liquor cabinet that shames some bars, not only in actual number of bottles, but also in the array of top-shelf and/or rare liquors. Two, when does one find oneself in need of a drink more than the holidays?
Whether it's the merriment of celebration, the release of stress, or simply the desire to take a breather from all the socializing by indulging in a brief respite behind the bar, December is the time for mixing. And also for giving, so allow me to give you my two newly-invented cocktails for 2008: the Ginger-Pear Cocktail and the Nihilist.
First things first: no, the title is not an exaggeration, unless you're a literalist, as the book's full title is 400 Sauces: Dips, Dressings, Salsas, Jams, Jellies & Pickles., but, second things second, I didn't actually count them. Third things third: beyond the recipes for sauces et cetera, this book offers great primer teaching on this fundamental of cooking, courtesy of authors Catherine Atkinson, Christine France and Maggie Mayhew.
400 Sauces is a a British publication (Hermes House) so some yankee readers will have to adjust to a terminology in which a rocket is not a spaceship but a leaf (arugula, if you didn't know) and measurements are given in metrics as well as ounces. There are some distinctly British offerings that may disorient stateside users: where, outside of a hunting lodge, have you last encountered Cumberland sauce (pages 66, 343); where (perhaps The Inn at Little Washington?) would you find not just a recipe for watercress cream (page 58) but the correct dishes with which to serve it (salmon or sea trout, if you're wondering). Begin by mastering sauce basics (ingredients, measures, prep) and continue by mastering basic sauces (beurre blanc, veloute, bechamel, et cetera). The book moves on to great sections on chutneys, salsas, pickles and relishes, dessert sauces, salad dressings, jams and jellies, marinades and dozens of additional sauces, condiments and virtually every other thing you can serve alongside, atop, or surrounding another food.
As you've likely been reminded during the last month, mint is unavoidable during the holidays. Everyone thinks you want a candy cane (and to be fair, many people do, and God bless them ev'ryone). If people think you're a southern cook (even when you're not), they are anxious for you to try their handcrafted julep, which makes you anxious to avoid having your face freeze in the chic grimace with which Rosalind Russell greeted those honey-based daiquiris in Auntie Mame. Some will even corrupt the holiest of holies -- chocolate cake -- by whirling peppermint oil into the ganache.
Therefore, today's moral quandry: you love Absinthe (though you are somewhat disappointed that it is now legal) but you don't like mint. Can you, who have heretofore avoided everything minty except Girl Scout cookies and toothpaste, now embrace a breath mint that combines oil of anise with a pungent hit of wintergreen? If they're these absinthe mints, yes, you can.
Christmas is over for another year. The presents have been opened, traditional breakfasts have been eaten (in our house, it's fried eggs, turkey bacon and sliced of toasted Panettone) and dinner feasts have been consumed. Once I again this year, I found myself confronted by one of the injustices of holiday eating, which is that a meal that takes all day to prepare gets demolished in less than half an hour. It never seems quite right to me.
Each year for Christmas, my family remakes the traditional Thanksgiving meal (we just like it so much) - turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, gingery squash, brussels sprouts and cranberry sauce. We finished the meal with pumpkin custard (pie without the crust) and an apple crisp. It was lovely, although hours and hours later I still feel the need to waddle instead of walk.
I want to hear about the holiday feasts the rest of you partook in. Did you have turkey, ham or roast beef? A cookie platter or an assortment of pies? Tell us about your successes and failures and feel free to point us all in the direction of a truly excellent recipe.
How do you keep that Christmas spirit going after today is done? Easy. Tomorrow your local beer seller will be back open for business. You run out, grab some Christmas beers, and keep that X-mas flavor going beer-sippin' style all the way to New Years.
Yes, Christmas beers do exist (regardless of how you think Jesus might feel about such a product). Some, like, say, Sly Fox Christmas Ale are a bit more explicit about their affiliations than others, but any winter seasonal can double as a great Christmas drink, and even old cold weather standbys like Guinness can be a perfect holiday treat.
By landing on the 25th, this week's Slashfood Ate (8) beer edition also doubles as a Christmas edition, so I present to you 8 links to 8 different lists of top Christmas beers.
Champagne or another bubbly might possibly be my stuck-on-a-desert-island drink of choice, but not everyone feels the love. Monday I posted my top eight bubblies for the holidays, but if you just don't dig sparkling wine, what can you toast with instead? Here are a few ideas.
Syrah/Shiraz from Washington state or Australia, which is big and voluptuous, smooth and silky all at once. Skip old world Syrah from the Northern Rhone, which, though it hails from the grape's true home, can give off aromas and flavors of green olives, white pepper, leather, and even meaty bacon. Great with a big ol' hunk of meat, not so great as the jumping-off point to a midnight kiss or a glass-raising toast to the man of the hour. Try the Sequel Syrah from Long Shadows Winery in Walla Walla, Washington, a Shiraz-style wine that's perfect for sipping without food.
Moscato d'Asti, a low-alcohol, barely bubbly Italian sweet white that my friend John calls "party in your mouth" is the perfect alternative to the dryness of Champagne. Try toasting with a bottle from Michele Chiarlo.
Dessert wine is best for a tête-à-tête celebration rather than a room full of happy toasters, both because it comes in half-size bottles and it's usually spendy. Splurge with Sauternes, the world's best dessert wine, or try a late harvest Riesling from Chateau Ste. Michelle.
Anything in a bottle bigger than 750 mL: a magnum (2 bottles), Jeroboam (4 bottles), or Nebuchadnezzar (20 bottles, but you'd better have help pouring) will always wow the crowd, no matter what's inside.
Of all the sweet treats my grandmother made so well, fresh coconut cake always seemed to be my father's favorite. I detested grated coconut until sometime after her death, so I never tried hers. However, this Christmas seemed like the perfect time to bake one for my father.
At a glance, the recipe sounded easy enough, given that the first ingredient was Duncan Hines Golden Butter Cake Mix. I baked that according to the instructions. Actually, I baked two boxes to make four full layers, so the rest of my instructions will work for that adjustment.
While the layers baked, I faced the coconut. There's got to be a better way than what I tried, basically gouging a hole to drain the liquid out by tapping a thin serrated knife into it with a meat tenderizer. Still, I managed to drain the thing and reserve the liquid. Next I endeavored to crack the coconut open. I will spare you those gruesome details. Look here, as I should have done, for help on cracking the coconut , and then find out the rest of the recipe after the jump.
Today's featured edible gift (although you might want to keep at least one batch for yourself) is from Rebecca of Ezra Pound Cake. It's her mom's recipe and looks to be simple and addictively tasty. It's just freshly popped corn, a couple of cups of nuts (your choice - Rebecca used pecans, but I bet it would be delicious with almonds or peanuts) and a homemade caramel syrup. You mix the popcorn and nuts with the caramel sauce and bake in a low oven for an hour. Get the exact recipe over at Ezra Pound Cake.
Are finances a little tighter this holiday season? If so, Average Betty understands your budgetary pain and wants to help you have a festive meal in spite of the depressing economic state. In order to cheer you up, she's produced a video that features a recipe for the holidays, Creme Brulee, a def holiday rap music video (by Denny Blaze, a.k.a. The Average Homeboy) and the Creme Brulee dancer. Betty will have you dancing in your seat and craving a dish of Creme Brulee like nobody's business by the end of the episode.
Panettone is one of the many holiday sweets I look forward to every year. Its balance between the moist, soft, fluffy inside and crunchy nut exterior is precious. Apparently the aroma of this bread permeates villages throughout northern Italy this time of the year. Ah, I yearn to be there at this very moment!
As a result of my panettone obsession, I tend to buy a lot more than I can eat before it goes stale. Fortunately, there are several ways to cooking panettone even after it loses its delicious soft texture. For example, it makes a distinctive fruity french toast and bread pudding.
Fleur de Maquis, the above cheese, epitomizes the festive soft-ripened cheese. This deliciously creamy and sweet Corsican cheese is covered in rosemary and thyme. During the holiday season, I enjoy rich soft-ripened cheeses, such as Vacherin Mont D'Or, that are in season. A festive cheese is one that you can have with a feast. This means it's important for it to be able to go along with several other foods at the celebration. Choose a cheese that will not dominate everything else being served. Fleur de Maquis is perfect because it's flavor tends to pair well with not just fruits and nuts, but also a variety of sparkling wines and even cured meats.
After the jump are 5 festive soft-ripened cheeses that are perfect for celebrating the New Year.
First things first: no, the title is not an exaggeration, unless you're a literalist, as the book's full title is 400 Sauces: Dips, Dressings, Salsas, Jams, Jellies & Pickles., but, second things second, I didn't actually count them. Third things third: beyond the recipes for sauces et cetera, this book offers great primer teaching on this fundamental of cooking, courtesy of authors Catherine Atkinson, Christine France and Maggie Mayhew.
.jpg)
How do you keep that Christmas spirit going after today is done? Easy. Tomorrow your local beer seller will be back open for business. You run out, grab some Christmas beers, and keep that X-mas flavor going beer-sippin' style all the way to New Years.
10 More Dirty Restaurant Tricks
5 Things You Didn't Know About Turducken
10 Catchiest Food Jingles We Love to Hate
