I have a goal in life. Well, not just one goal but a small goal regarding cooking and recipe creation. I want to make something that impresses the Baker. Sure I can impress my mom, maybe my sister and perhaps a gaggle of friends on occasion, but it is a much harder thing to impress someone who is routinely surrounded by the best food you can get your hands on. Like is one thing, impress is another. I am sure he has liked at least some of the things I have cooked, but been impressed by, blown away by, running home to recreate over and over again? Not quite yet. Someday I will accomplish that. Until then, I am just going to work at it and create dishes and hopefully come up with enough good ones that I can make a cookbook out of them. Ha, right. Dreams are what they are…

On Friday, I was hankering for some lentils. Lentils are something I have not spent any time cooking, but definitely enjoy. When I bought a few bags of lentils at the co-op I was sort of wondering what the heck I was thinking. All I knew was that I wanted Lentils, Bacon and Sweet Potato. The combo sounded delicious. I poured over a bunch of recipes for ideas and technique, but found nothing exactly like what I was looking for. There are plenty of Lentil Bacon Salads, but I wanted something warm and warming.

While this recipe may not have taken down my small goal, it was pretty delicious.

Lentils with Bacon and Sweet Potato

Ingredients:

1.5 cups french lentils
1 large sweet potato, diced
water
1 onion , halved
1 carrot, halved
7 pieces bacon, cut into thin strips
½ tbsp. olive oil
½ cup red onion, diced
½ cup carrot, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
salt
4 tbsp. whole grain mustard
1 ½ tbsp. red wine vinegar

Directions:

Place lentils, halved carrot and onion and sweet potato in a medium pot and cover with 2 inches of water. Bring to a boil, reduce and simmer until the lentils are cooked. Turn off heat, add a dash of salt. Remove carrot and onion.

Meanwhile in a large skillet before turning on the heat, place the bacon and the olive oil in the pan. Raise heat and cook bacon. Add diced carrots and onions and cook for 3-5 minutes, until slightly tender. Add a dash of salt and the garlic.

Drain lentils and add to skillet, tossing to coat (gently). Turn off heat. Add mustard and red wine vinegar. Adjust seasoning.

Bread attempts

I am not really the type of person to wish to change circumstances that cannot be or wish things away that simply cannot be wished away. It is futile and a great waste of energy. I change or work for change in things I have control over and celebrate the parts of life that simply are what they are good or bad. No resistance, no stress.

There is one thing though I would change. Ok, actually it’s two things. I wish I could eat gluten and I wish I could eat eggs. There is no oh poor me involved in this. I eat these things, I don’t feel good. It is a fact of life, one which would be nice to be able to change. People with food intolerance, allergies and diseases like Chrons/Celiac are not doing happy dances when they get their diagnoses I assure you. As much as you can become happy and ok with it, it is not something you’d wish on anyone.

There are a few brilliant individuals such as Karina and Shauna and bakeries such as BabyCakes (NYC/LA) and Flying Apron (Seattle) who are making great strides in creating gluten-free friendly recipes of the things people commonly have to cut out of their diets when they have gluten intolerance and Celiac. It is awesome what they are doing. Goodness knows, I appreciate it when I need a baked goods fix. I have also started to develop gluten free, egg-free recipes of my own that I would some day love to share in a cookbook or bakery.

I think my biggest problem is that I am not really a baked good person in general. You would think that would make being gluten intolerant easier and it does, but the problem is when I do crave a baked good there are some that just cannot be mimicked in a gluten free style. Cookies, cupcakes, even most morning pastries but not bread. The thing I often crave the most is a big hunk of crusty bread straight out of the oven. In my adult life, I have never been much of a consumer of bread on a daily basis, or even consistently of grains. I just prefer veggies and fruit to grains. But there are some days when I can think of nothing more than a hunk of bread with butter melting over it.

Last week was one of those weeks. I wanted bread. I wanted a sandwich. I wanted crusty, flaky warm bread straight out of the oven. And I didn’t want to suffer for it. And so, I decided to try my hand at baking on. I consulted many sources but each had something I could not use or work with. One has eggs, another uses a breadmaker and provides no alternate instructions. Each had something I would tweak or change. And so I decided to do that.

I developed a gluten free, egg free crusty bread in my brand new 5 1/2 quart Le Creuset, consulted with the Baker about a few techniques and on Friday baked off my first batch. Fresh out of the oven (after cooling), it had a great outside crunch, the inside was what I would expect of a gluten free loaf- slightly dense, but yes! it had some lift and stretchy bubbles. However, it also had a slightly metallic taste which I had just suggested be worked out of another gluten free recipe that the Baker had me try. The metallic taste comes from the egg replacer which would easily be remedied if I had the luxury of being able to eat eggs. Eggs are a good “cheat” in gluten free baking. The loaf was not bad, in fact, it was probably a revelation in terms of gluten free bread baking. But it was not what I wanted. I will continue to develop the recipe and see if I can create something crave worthy. It is a start and I am intrigued.

Condiment Party

Part of the hope in baking the bread on Friday was that I would have a nice loaf of bread that I could put my hot dogs on for our Super Bowl Sunday party. We decided to throw a Super not Superbowl Party, which eventually became just a Super Superbowl Party. The requirements for coming were to bring a beverage and a homemade condiment. The Baker made buns and we cooked up some great tasting dogs. The day before the big game, we spent a few hours in the kitchen making Maple Baked Beans, Chipotle Ketchup, Roasted Peppers, Caramelized Onions and Spicy Mustard.

Best hog dog buns anyone had ever tasted.

Hot dogs braised in white wine, onions and cloves.

Maple Glazed Beans. Cooked for 6 hours. YUM!

The party was awesome and the party-goers absolutely surprised and delighted me in the level in which they got into making condiments. They showed some great creativity. We had a few types of ketchup, honey mustard, sprouted mung bean relish, spicy thai relish, wasabi mayo, guacamole, tomatillo salsa, sauerkraut, cream cheese. You name it, we had it. It was really fascinating to watch the combination and methods that people chose in getting a maximum number of condiments on their dogs or plates. People had a great time and I was really blessed to have such a great group of people bless my home with their presence and my kitchen with their great dishes!

Christmas Eve Traditions

Christmas Eve dinner for as long as I can remember has always been the same meal for my family. No matter where we are, it doesn’t really feel like Christmas unless we are noshing on prime rib for dinner and my sister’s special sugar cookies. Even though when we get together the question is often posed, “what do we have for Christmas Eve dinner?”, it is not really a question. This year my sister, mom and I were going to be all together unlike last year and even more special, we were going to be celebrating in my sister and my new apartment. Furthermore, I was very excited to not only share Christmas with all the most important people in my life, but also to share our Christmas traditions which also include eating homemade loaves of Stollen on Christmas morning with sausages, eggs, fresh squeezed oj and plenty of coffee and eating “stew-p” which is an everything but the kitchen sink type of soup/stew (hence stew-p).

I ordered a really nice roast from Drew’s Brothers and while I was picking it up nabbed some breakfast sausages, hot italian sausages and chicken (for Christmas day). There were a total of 7 of us for Christmas Eve dinner and I wanted everything to be awesome. I fretted a bit over how to cook the prime rib and didn’t settle on a method until I read this post from Serious Eats. It went through the popular methods and figured out how to have the perfect sear plus perfect pink (medium rare). I was sold and with some trepidation proceeded forward.

Secret recipe Mac and Cheese

The menu included Prime rib, Horseradish Sauce (creme fraiche, dijon and horseradish), Green Beans with Garlic and Butter, Salad with AMAZING homemade dressing (red wine vinegar, olive oil, blue agave, fresh herbs and garlic), my secret recipe Mac and Cheese and fresh bread from The Baker.

I prepared everything in stages, timing out the whole meal and executing it dang near perfectly. Especially impressive since dinner time got pushed back by slightly tardy guests. I was nervous about the meal. I really wanted to provide an amazing dining experience for my guests. Before we dug into the food, we enjoyed a nice spread of crackers, hummus, salsa and plenty of Prosecco.

Empty plates and empty wine glasses? For shame! Dig in people!

With everything ready we sat down at the table, paused for me to take a picture of the table and then dug right in. Once everyone’s plates were full the room fell into a deep, deep silence as everyone savored their food. I hadn’t started digging in to my plate, instead I just watched their reactions and the delight at the tasting of each thing. It was actually pretty funny since they all seemed to look up at once at me and say, “this is really good!”. We drank delicious red wine with dinner and then once we had digested and socialized for a while devoured some of my sister’s Special Sugar Cookies, Peanut Butter Peanut Butter Chip cookies by The Baker and Gluten Free Ginger Molasses cookies by me. It was so much fun enjoying our tradition as a family and sharing it with the people I care about.

Goodbye Year, Hello New Chef in the Family?

Sister sampling her soup.

The other night, my beautiful sister offered to cook for us and boldly go where she doesn’t often go. My sister can cook, she just doesn’t know it yet. She has her staple items that she makes for herself, but a bad experience in the past of being made fun of for something she cooked for someone else has led her to be trepidatious when it comes to cooking for others. I was utterly shocked when she offered to cook for The Baker and I.

And cook she did. A delicious Baked Potato soup with bacon, scallions and cheddar. It had the flavor profile of a good hearty loaded baked potato but was a much lighter meal. She paired it with a salad and we were in business. She did great and I look forward to her next attempt. Who knows maybe one day she’ll be guest posting for me!

While she made soup, I worked on making some gluten free dark chocolate peanut butter and jelly cupcakes for NYE dinner. They are pretty dang tasty. I am stoked to share them. It has been a good year of eating, blogging, writing and living. I look forward to a continuation and growth of that in the new year. Happy New Year everyone!