Buche De Noel

                                                           My version

I usually leave making the traditional buche de noel to Emily as she's good at it but, with no daughter in town this year, it fell on me to do the honor of creating a fake log cake.

What I like about the recipe Emily makes (beyond the obvious fact of one less thing I have to cook) is that it is actually a reverse to the usual chocolate cake with white center variety. Her version is a yellow sponge cake with chocolate ganache filling. I know...whoever heard of a blonde log, right? The original has white icing (snow?) but Emily usually uses more of the filling to make a light covering of dark on the outside. Realism aside, who cares? Hers tastes great and looks beautiful.

Before I detail what a disastrous time I had actually getting a final product to serve for our Christmas Eve dinner, let me start with the explanations and excuses. It was very late when I started making the components for the cake. I'm never all that alert at night and way less so when I've spent the entire day making other dishes, getting the house ready for company, and obsessing over the things I still needed to do. Chores I would normally NEVER leave to the last minute (little details like wrapping gifts) but did, this year. UGH, Christmas stress at its finest.

I made the cake batter, put it in the oven and then, because I was clearly out of my head, overturned the cake onto the kitchen counter. I don't even know how to explain what went wrong from here but, in trying to get it to a clean kitchen towel where it belonged, my cake fell apart completely. And so did I. It was late, I was tired, and I just wanted to scrap the whole project. I did scrap my ruined mess but I couldn't let go of the vision of serving this cake up as part of my menu for our Christmas Eve guests.

So, here we go again. 7 more eggs cracked and separated. The whites looked great beat to stiff peaks and I felt like I was finally on a roll to a successful roll. Until something went wrong with the batter. For some reason still not quite clear to me, my cake in batter form was looking way more like a very sticky bread dough. I tried adapting by throwing in more flour (did I leave a cup out?) but nothing could bring the mixture to what I knew it should look and feel like. Yes, believe it or not, I scrapped that batch and started AGAIN. At least I still had the whites mixture ready to go but that still meant I had to use seven more eggs. Are you keeping count? This means my buche du noel had now gobbled up 21 eggs, with no promise that there would ever be an actual finished cake to enjoy. Ahh, the joys of cooking.

Third times the charm, or 21st egg is the secret. Something like that. The cake finally got finished and, while not as good as Emily's, it was lovely to look at and pretty delicious. I followed the King Arthur recipe on the outer icing but, next time I make this, I'll do it Emily's way with just a light covering of the ganache. And I'll make sure I have plenty of eggs on hand.

Buche De Noel
Recipe from King Arthur Flour (and there is an excellent how-to video on their website)

CAKE  (This makes a lovely light sponge cake)
7 large eggs, separated
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar, divided
2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
2 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vegetable or canola oil
3/4 cup milk (2%, whole or fat-free, or half & half)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon creamy hazelnut flavor (optional, but very good)
simple syrup or hazelnut syrup or hazelnut liquor for brushing cake
confectioners' sugar for dusting the towel
CHOCOLATE GANACHE FILLING
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 cup chopped bittersweet or semisweet chocolate
1/8 teaspoon creamy hazelnut flavor
FROSTING BARK
1 1/3 cups white chocolate chunks
Instructions
Preheat oven to 325°F. Line a half sheet pan with parchment paper and spritz with cooking spray.
To make the cake: In a large bowl, whip the egg whites to soft peaks. Gradually add 1/2 cup of sugar, continue beating the whites until medium peaks form. Set whites aside.
In a small bowl whisk together the dry ingredients, including the remaining one cup of the sugar. Set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix the egg yolks, oil, milk, vanilla and hazelnut flavoring until blended. Mix on medium speed until lightened and pale lemon colored. Add the dry ingredients and continue to mix, about 1 minute until well incorporated.
Remove the bowl from the mixer. Using a large spatula, gently fold the egg whites into the batter, 1/3 at a time. Use gentle motions to preserve the air in the whites.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 15 to 18 minutes or until golden brown on top and the cake begins to pull away from the sides of the pan slightly.
To make the ganache: While the cake is baking, heat the cream until just simmering. Add the chopped chocolate and remove from the heat. Stir gently until the chocolate melts completely. Remove from the pan and place in a large bowl to cool. You may refrigerate or freeze the ganache to speed the cooling.
Once the ganache is cooled to pudding consistency, whip with a whisk or hand mixer until fluffy and frosting like.
Remove the cake from the pan by lifting the parchment paper. Place cake side up on the counter and trim off the edges of the cake to make rolling easier. Turn the cake over on a large, clean kitchen towel dusted with confectioners' sugar. Peel off the parchment paper.
Roll the cake up as though the towel were the filling. Cool the cake, rolled up, for 20 to 30 minutes.
Unroll the towel and remove it. Brush the cake with the simple syrup; let it sit for 5 minutes so the syrup can soak in.
Spread with the prepared ganache filling and re-roll. Place in the fridge to chill for 20 to 30 minutes. The roll can be wrapped tightly and frozen at this point for up to 3 months.
To decorate the cake: Melt 8 ounces of white chocolate very slowly over low heat in a double boiler. Remove the cake from the refrigerator and spread a thin layer of chocolate over the entire surface. Return to the fridge to set up, about 10 to 15 minutes.
Add a second layer of white chocolate to the cake, spreading the chocolate to resemble tree bark. A fork may be used to add texture by dragging the tines through the cooling chocolate. Once the chocolate has firmed, decorate as desired with a dusting of confectioners' sugar, cocoa or chocolate curls.
Cake will keep for about 3 days in the fridge, well covered. Let it warm up on the counter before serving.

Emily's version

Green Bean Casserole

Lots of folks love green bean casserole and don't consider it a holiday meal if that particular dish isn't on the table. I'm not one of those people. Up until this year, I hadn't tasted the dreaded green bean/soupy mess mixture for years and would have been perfectly content to let the rest of my life go by in the same green bean casserole-less state.

What changed my mind and made me search for a recipe I could tolerate was knowing that Gianne loves this same concoction I detest. In fact, I'd heard her tell someone that she didn't consider it a true holiday meal unless a green bean casserole showed up on her plate. Normally, I might've asked her to bring her version to the Christmas Eve dinner we were sharing with her family but how do you ask someone living with five people and two dogs in a hotel room to cook up a holiday dish? After selling their house right after Thanksgiving, the C family had been holed up in their tiny room at the Chase Suites, waiting to pack up the car and start the long drive to Washington state on...CHRISTMAS DAY! All of the details of their suddenly nomadic existence made my heart hurt. It also compelled me to try to create a beautiful Christmas Eve meal that would include their favorite foods...right down to the dreaded green bean casserole.

Not having made this dish in...pretty much forever, I asked Gianne what version she liked. Given a sketchy outline of what constituted a perfect green bean casserole in her eyes, I started searching the internet and found this version. Remarkably, I actually kind of liked how it turned out. Gone is the gloppy soup mixture I remember being the binding component of long ago casseroles. Instead, you get a less heavy cream sauce and LOTS OF ONIONS. How can you go wrong with a heavy layer of those crunchy Durkey onions?????

Now that Gianne and family are safely in their new home on the other side of the country, I doubt they will be coming to future holiday dinners here in Parkville, but I may well try this dish again, come Easter, or Thanksgiving, or Christmas 2017. And I'll think of my sweet friend.


THE BEST GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE
Recipe courtesy of the Novice Chef blog
INGREDIENTS:
2 tablespoons kosher salt
1.5 pounds fresh green beans, rinsed and ends trimmed
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 large portobello mushrooms, chopped
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 - 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup half-and-half
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
6 oz french fried onions

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease a 9x13 casserole dish, set aside.
Blanch the beans: In a large pot, bring about a gallon of water and 2 tablespoons of salt to a boil. Add the green beans and boil for 5 minutes. Drain in a colander and immediately plunge the beans into a large bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process. Drain and set aside.
Melt butter in a large skillet set over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and onions, stirring occasionally, until the onions begin to soften, about 4 to 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms, salt and pepper and continue to cook for another 1 to 2 minutes.
Sprinkle in the flour and stir to combine. Cook for 2 minutes. Add the chicken broth and stir to combine. Then add the half and half and simmer until the mixture thickens, stirring occasionally, approximately 6 to 8 minutes.
Remove from the heat and stir in all of the green beans. Transfer green bean mixture to prepared casserole dish. Top with the bread crumbs and then layer the french fried onions on top.
Place casserole in the oven and bake until bubbly, about 20 minutes. If your onions start to brown too quickly, cover the casserole with foil. Serve immediately.

(You can assemble this dish the day before. If you do it that way, leave off the breadcrumbs and fried onions until you get ready to put the casserole in the oven. Add about ten minutes to the cooking time and cover with foil part of the time, to keep the onions from getting too brown and crispy.)

Twix Ritz

I don't do a lot of specialized baking at Christmas but the two cookies I always make are both somewhat labor intensive. Sugar cookies and gingerbread boys require that you roll the dough out (over and over), which takes time. Add decorating cute faces and clothing outlines for a gazillion gingerbread boys/girls and we're talking some major blocks of time that need to be set aside.

This year I decided to try a new treat. I wanted it to look good but be super easy and fast to make. What could be quicker than a three ingredient recipe, right? Wrong! For as much as I thought these little treats would be a breeze to crank out, they turned out to be unexpectedly vexing.

First of all, you can't get the caramel too hot/cooked or it will be hard and awful. This means careful monitoring of the melting process. Then, when the caramel is just right, getting it onto the cracker isn't quite as quick and easy as one might imagine. The goo is sticky and wants to do it's own thing which apparently does NOT involve staying neatly within the confines of a Ritz cracker.

Picture this Christmas scene - me wrangling with the caramel and wanting to curse at how outright tricky it is to spread the goo before the mixture hardens again or overcooks. All the while, I'm thinking these little bites are just not worth the trouble of making them and I should quit while I'm ahead and go sulk in the corner while eating an entire box of twixless Ritz crackers. Now, don't you wanna just run right out and make some of these for yourself?

Well, you should. I finally got a rhythm going with my caramel placement. This involved twisting the knife in just the right way to corral my goo before slapping on the top cracker. Truthfully, it reminded me of putting eyes on gingerbread boys. How do the two relate? With both, once you figure out how to use just the right hand movement, it gets pretty easy to make eyes that don't have blue lasers shooting out or caramel that runs over the side of the cracker and onto the parchment below.

When all the crackers had been Twix'ed I decided I couldn't wait for the chocolate to set so I placed the first batch in the refrigerator. Big mistake! In gaining a few minutes on setting time for the chocolate, I also wound up with a tooth-crackingly hard caramel center. No, I didn't actually damage any of my teeth but it sure felt like I could. Take back the few minutes saved and add a whole lot more time for the caramel to come back to room temperature! Lesson learned.

My neighbors had lots of compliments for these little fake Twix cookies but the true test came when Brian tried them. My ultra honest critic also loved them - so much so, that he even told his sister about them. Now that's an opinion I can trust! And a reason why you should make these.

RITZ TWIX
Ingredients:
2-3 ounces Melting Milk Chocolate or Milk Chocolate Almond Bark, melted
1 Sleeve Ritz Crackers
1 Cup Caramels, melted

Instructions:
Line the crackers up on a parchment lined baking sheet.
Add a spoonful of caramel to every other cracker and top with the other cracker.
Next, using a fork dip each cracker in the bowl of melted milk chocolate on each side, then lift it out, gently shaking the fork to allow excess chocolate to drip off of the crackers.
Place on parchment and allow to set. Store in tupper ware.

Peach Dumplings

Since I didn't get a picture of the dumplings, you can look at the lovely farm land where this event was held. 

You know how some people can't keep their New Year's resolutions for even a week? So pitiful, those folks are. Me? I managed to stay strong on my Never Use Crescent Rolls In A Recipe resolution for almost six whole months. Then I caved...and it is all Pioneer Woman's fault.

There was a women's game night scheduled last week. Ladies at our church look forward to this evening for months in advance as it only happens once a year. OK, maybe women get together and socialize more often than that but this particular once-a-year outing happens at a church member's farm house way out in the boonies, amidst the corn fields and rolling farm lands. It's a beautiful setting and a fun evening. In fact, the event is so highly touted among the lady folk at our church that I actually persuaded the hostess to move the event up a bit on the calendar so I could still be in town, before the long haul back to San Diego.

What does this have to do with crescent rolls, you ask? Everything. When it was time to think of a dish to share, I had lots of ideas ranging from very ambitious to as easy as whipping up some spinach dip. Then I saw a video on Facebook (where else?) and I was suddenly hooked on making peach dumplings. Because who doesn't love peaches in the summer time? Added to the natural allure of a seasonal fruit was the intrigue of using a carbonated beverage with the peaches. Not often you mix rolls and Sprite in a recipe, right?

There were a few minutes of trepidation when I told someone what I was planning to make and they mentioned having tried the apple dumpling version of this same recipe, but feeling like it came out kind of gooey. Little warning bells started ringing in my head as I thought back to those ooey, wet ham roll-up thingees that first made me swear off crescent rolls. Was I doomed to repeat that same failure for basically the identical group of ladies who'd been at my house last Christmas, pretending to love the idea of eating mushy, wet dough????  It seemed like a pretty dicey proposition but there was Pioneer Woman cheerfully assuring me that these dumplings would be the hit of any gathering I took them to. Surely Ree wouldn't lie to me...at least I hoped she wouldn't as I poured that 7 oz can of Sprite into the pan, creating what looked like an impossibly drenched dish of crescent roll dumplings.  At this point it was up to Ree to dry up that pan of carbonated drink and come through on her promise of deliciousness.

Wet or not, crescent rolls or not - what baked up was a pan full of summer goodness. The dumplings were absolutely perfect with a big dollop of ice-cream on top. After my friends had enjoyed them for game night, I took the few leftovers home and served them up to my brother the next night. He couldn't stop talking about how good they tasted. Best part of all, we both agreed that watching TV and eating a bowl of the dumplings and ice-cream brought back summer memories of West Virginia and being at our grandparents house for peach pie almost every night.

Peach Dumplings
Thepioneerwoman.com

Ingredients
2 cans of the dreaded Crescent Rolls
16 whole frozen peach slices (yea...I know! Why not fresh? Maybe they'd be even better but I was content to take the easy way out and use frozen. When the slices seemed a bit "puny" I stuffed two into one dumpling and that seemed to work just fine)
1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) butter
1  1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
Ground cinnamon for sprinkling (I sprinkled rather liberally, mostly by accident, but it turned out to be a fortuitous slip of my hand as the cinnamon enhanced the flavors)
1 can Sprite, 7-Up, or Mountain Dew (I actually used one of the smaller 7 oz cans and that was plenty)
Extra butter, for the pan
Whipped cream for serving or ICE-CREAM!

Directions
Butter a 9X13 inch baking dish. Roll each peach slice in a crescent roll. Place in the pan. Melt butter, then add sugar and barely stir. Add vanilla, stir once or twice, then pour the entire mixture over the rolls/peaches in the pan. On the video, Pioneer Woman explains that your butter mixture should still be grainy when you pour it into the pan. It looked kind of like runny applesauce. Pour 3/4 of a large can (or all  of the small can) of Sprite around the edges and in the middle of the pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon and bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Remove from the oven and let sit for 10 minutes before serving. Serve with ice cream of whipped cream and spoon some of the sweet sauces from the pan over the top.

Taco Salad

Last summer I went to a choir reunion at Joanne's house. It was one of those events where everyone brings a food to share. I remember being excited to see what my favorite filipino ladies would bring. Mostly, I wanted lumpia and that desire was answered in spades. Can you ever have too much lumpia? I think not.

In between stuffing one lumpia roll after another into my mouth, I came across Nancy C.'s version of taco salad. Somewhere, I probably still have the recipe for this dish that originally came from Linda D, way back in the 70's. Shortly after my marriage, I remember making up a taco salad for Martin and being saddened by his less than enthusiastic response. Little did I realize how many times this cooking scenario would play out in my married life as I've tried out one dish after another, only to have them be rejected by the man who'd just as soon eat an Arby's sandwich as have a home cooked meal. Sigh....

Nancy's taco salad was good enough that I asked for her recipe and then tucked it away until this week when I had to deliver on the promise to make a batch for the Bible Study ladies coming to my house for an end-of the-year luncheon. I did tweak the basics of what she gave me, adding a few things that I thought would taste good mixed in with the core ingredients. One of the ladies at the luncheon let me know she was delighted to see so many "fun" ingredients. At her house, they cut up lettuce, cook up some meat, add chips and call it taco salad. Her recipe makes this one seem downright complicated, in comparison! I'd eat either version.

Taco Salad
Recipe courtesy of Nancy C - sort of

Ingredients:
2 pounds hamburger
2 packages taco seasoning (or use your own)
green onion, cut up
2 tomatoes
8 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded
dorito taco flavor tortilla chips
2 heads lettuce
2 cans kidney beans, rinsed and drained
2 cans corn, rinsed and drained
sliced black olives, drained
Sliced avocado

Dressing Ingredients:
Thousand Island dressing
La Victoria Red taco sauce

Directions:

Cook the hamburger with the taco seasoning. Cool the meat completely. Add all the salad ingredients, except the avocado, tortilla chips and dressing. For the dressing, mix the Thousand Island and taco sauce together, using taste to determine how much kick you want. You can use mild taco sauce or if you like more kick, use the hotter. That's definitely not me so I don't know how it would taste. Right before serving the salad, add the mixed dressing and tortilla chips. Arrange avocado slices on top or have them on the side for people to add, as desired.

Cinnabon Cake

There's something very satisfying about working with yeast breads and watching lumps of dough turn into something that's not only pleasing to look at but also yummy. Of all types of cooking, baking up yeast breads often serves as a kind of relaxation therapy for those times when I'm stressed or anxious over some aspect of daily life.

Most yeast recipes do, however,  require time to bake up and sometimes you just don't have the minutes to spare. Everyone knows Cinnabon rolls taste like a little piece of gooey heaven on earth but it's a bit of a commitment to make them at home.  Totally worth it...but only if you have the time and inclination. With it being my week to bring treats for Bible Study, I decided to go with this quicker compromise of a cake that tastes like Cinnabon rolls. The results? Good enough that I cheated on my diet and scarfed up a piece, convincing myself that it was my Christian duty to try out my cake before making others eat it. Yep, that's me - Saint Barbara (or would that be Santa Barbara???)

One completely random note about making these rolls. Brian knew I've thought about buying a Kitchen-Aide mixer for the condo but hesitated because of the price. Not to mention the fact that it felt like too much of a good thing to own two Kitchen-Aides. I've got my beloved Big Blue here in Parkville but the cheap hand-held mixer I bought not long after getting married has been enough for the condo. But who knew Brian was still thinking about my love for Kitchen Aide Number One, until he sent me a link for one of those super deals on Amazon. After a lot of debating back and forth, I ended up buying a sister for Big Blue and this time I was able to pick a color that coordinates better with my kitchen here in Parkville. The new one sits on my counter while Kitchen Aide Number One sits in one of my closets, waiting to be relocated to the condo. I'm still getting used to the difference in how this new mixer works, specifically that the head doesn't tilt back. So far, it feels awkward to attach beaters and add ingredients without being able to flip that bulky head out of the way. In the middle of making my Cinnabon cake, I almost hauled Big Blue out of the closet but decided to keep going with the new mixer. Cause I'm just that kind of versatile cook.

Back to this recipe.  My cake went straight from oven to church. Once the Bible Study gals had enthusiastically taken their portions, those few pieces that were left came home and got wrapped up for the freezer. Now when Martin gets home from his latest consulting trip, he can have a form of his beloved Cinnabon rolls as a surprise treat - assuming I can keep up the resolve to not snatch those leftovers out of the freezer and eat them in their rock hard state.

Cinnabon Cake
from Hugs and Cookies xoxo.com

Ingredients:
3 cups flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 cups milk
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup butter, melted
TOPPING
1 cup butter, melted
1 cup brown sugar
2 Tbsp. flour (or cup4cup if gluten free)
1 Tbsp. cinnamon
 FROSTING
3 oz cream cheese
1/4 cup softened butter
1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
a few teaspoons milk


Instructions:
 Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9×13 glass baking pan with cooking spray or coconut oil spray. Set aside.
In a mixer, add the flour, salt, sugar, baking powder, milk, eggs, and vanilla. Once combined well, slowly stir in the melted butter. Pour into pan.
For the topping, mix the butter, brown sugar, flour and cinnamon together until well combined. Drizzle evenly over the batter and use a knife to marble/swirl through the cake.
Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes or when a toothpick inserted near the center comes out nearly clean.
Frosting:  Beat the first 3 ingredients until creamy.  Add a drop of milk at a time until still thick, yet spreadable.

Slow Cooker Pulled Pork

A few weeks ago when I asked Martin to choose some recipes he'd like to cook, this is one of the ones he came up with. I suppose I shouldn't have been too surprised that pulled pork would be on his favorites list as it seems to be one of the main staples here in the midwest. There are a million different recipes serving up pulled pork cooked in just about as many different ways. Certainly throwing the meat in a slow cooker has to be one of the easiest means for cooking up a home version of Kansas City's favorite dish.

One thing I've noticed about shopping in this area - grocery store butchers are beyond helpful. It wasn't that I couldn't ring one of those summoning bells to get a San Diego butcher at my disposal, but rather that the meat guys here are so charmingly enthusiastic about proffering advice, if you come within ten feet of their display cases. When I ask a butcher here to help me select a good cut of meat, the guy will spend minutes comparing different pieces, telling me just why one particular cut is better or worse than the next. I doubt I'd get much more serious attention if I were head of the FDA. Since I don't buy a lot of pork roasts, our local Price Chopper Meat Expert was more than happy to pick out the perfect cut of meat for this recipe. And, that just might have been the hardest part of making this very easy and tasty dish. So easy in fact, that I forgot to call my sous chef for help... until it came time to eat a kaiser roll stuffed with the best pulled pork on Augusta Drive.

Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Sandwiches
from tasteofhome.com

Ingredients:
1 boneless pork loin roast (4 pounds)
1 can (14 1/2 oz) beef broth or try using beer. (I actually wanted to try the beer but I couldn't find a single can and didn't want to have to buy a six pack just for this recipe. Maybe next time.
1/3 cup plus 1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce, divided
1/3 cup plus 1/4 cup Louisiana style hot sauce, divided (after reading comments from other cooks, I only used the first 1/3 cup, omitting the second 1/4 cup.)
1 cup ketchup
1 cup molasses (again, as per modifications made by other cooks, I used a little over 1/2 cup to cut down on too much sweetness)
1/2 cup prepared mustard
10 kaiser rolls, split

Directions:
Cut roast in half, place in a 5 quart slow cooker. In a small bowl, combine broth, 1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce, and 1/3 cup hot sauce: pour over roast. Cook, covered, on low 8-10 hours or until tender.

Remove roast: discard cooking juices. Shred pork with two forks. Return pork to slow cooker. (This might be the first time I've shred meat in such a manner. There are lots of YouTube videos that show chicken being shredded in a food processor and, while that looks fun, using forks to quickly take meat from a big hunk to strings is equally entertaining.)

In a small bowl combine ketchup, molasses, mustard, and remaining Worcestershire sauce and hot sauce. Pour over pork. Cook, covered, on high 30 minutes or until heated through. Serve on rolls.