Year of the appetizer, and appetizers of the year

Looking back over the course of the year that was, 2017 was clearly the year of the appetizer at our house.

This was partly by design. The Drink & Nosh feature was a strategic way to encourage me to broaden my appetizer repertoire beyond the tried and oh so true favorites. While it's certainly gratifying to have your guests recognize your offerings and say, "Oh, I love that one" on sight, it was a sign to someone like me that it was time to up my game a bit.

So small wonder then that as I look back at my favorite new recipes in the past year, four of them were appetizers. For simplicity that's simply wonderful, it was hard to beat the garlic and brie toasts we rushed to make at home after having them at our friend's house.

And any recipe that contains roasted squash, roasted garlic and goat cheese over crostini really has no choice but to be good, and this recipe didn't disappoint.

The roasted garlic saffron toasts were amazing even before being gilded with bacon. I plan to try those again garnished with caramelized onions to see if I can make them more Bernie-friendly.

Which brings me to my hands-down favorite, the caramelized onion rosemary dip. Really, an onion dip is my favorite? Yes, because it's somehow like the crack version of the standard store-bought onion dip, which usually does yeoman's duty at any game-day buffet, always readily devoured but never commented on. This version won't suffer that fate. I'm thinking about trying it with a touch of goat cheese, but really, maybe I should just stop while I'm way ahead.

Since there was the Drink portion of the blog gimmick, it's also not surprising that I discovered more cocktails that I really like. I'm not a huge hard liquor drinker, so it was useful (but possibly dangerous) to find some options well worth repeating.

The pear martini was the very best of the lot; it's hard to go wrong with anything containing St. Germaine. And speaking of elderflower flavors, discovering FeverTree's Elderflower tonic water was a quite nice addition to a standard gin and tonic. And speaking of gin and tonics, my close second favorite drink this year was a grapefruit tarragon variation that was so good. As was every gin and tonic we had on our friends' fabulous porch. Thanks, Sonja and Bernie; we really owe you several porch nights when we get ours rebuilt. Rounding out the drinks tray winners was the potentially odd, but surprisingly tasty rhubarb martini.

But I guess there's more to life than appetizers and booze. The winner in the category of Worth Getting Up For: the oh-so-lovely rhubarb scones. Heavenly way to start any Sunday morning.

When it came to lunch, bizarrely, the curried chickpea salad sandwiches were this omnivore's favorite. They are a winner both for flavor and a wonderfully pantry-friendly meal.

In the category of Best Use for a Slow Cooker, and all-around good supper: Corsican chicken with sun-dried tomatoes. 

To make it an even top 10 list, I'll pick the chicken Veronique with grape shallot cream sauce.

As always, some of our favorite meals were random acts of something on a Popine pizza crust, like this one with sun-dried tomato sauce.  Because as much as I clearly like trying something new, old favorites see us through the year. Thanks, Popine, for feeding us for another year, and thanks again, Amy, for sharing her 11 years ago.

So as we cherish the best of the last year, we look ahead and wish that the best is yet to come. Happy New Year.

In search of the elusive ginger cream recipe

Each Christmas I make a ridiculous quantity of cookies. It's never as many as I hoped to have made, or bought the ingredients for, but it's sufficiently ridiculous.

Along with several repeat options, I tried three new recipes this year. The chocolate toffee cookies, while not exceptionally looky, bear repeating. They were a finalist in this year's Taste cookie contest, and were clearly the people's choice winner in the tasting in the lobby. They call for salt on top, and I tried using Himalayan pink salt to make them more festive, but it's hard to retain that pink color after it's finely grated. At any rate, it merited a spot in the 10-cookie lineup.

I also tried the Cranberry Ecstasy Bar recipe from the Taste section, because it looked suitably festive and sounded really good with crystallized ginger, dried cranberries and white chocolate. They were fine-ish, but not really worth the effort, so I'll move on.

And I'll have to move on in my quest to find a ginger cream recipe that's like the one my grandmother made. Our mother didn't keep Grandma's recipe, and my sister and I regret that. We both remember it somewhat fondly, although naturally after all these years we remember it some what differently, which makes it that much less likely I'll find a recipe to match. She remembers a sandwich cookie filled with a coconut filling. I remember a very light ginger colored cookie with white frosting on top. Who knows, perhaps she made both.

I started with the ginger cream recipe from the Pillsbury cookbook, figuring Grandma would likely have used one of the Big Four major cookbooks. It's not bad, with cloves, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg, and I tried to make it dressier for the holiday by sprinkling crystallized ginger and gold sanding sugar on top. But it's clearly not the recipe. I've seen several recipes online, which also don't look likely to match my memory. Perhaps in a church cookbook ...

If 10 cookies seems ridiculous, it's nothing on this gingerbread replica of the Imperial Star Destroyer from Star Wars.

Caramelized onion rosemary dip and tahini cilantro dip

 

To some recipes, the only logical response is: Where have you been all my life? 

I made a big vat of caramelized onions the other day to use up the fall supply on the orchard rack in the basement before they start to sprout in January. One of the outcomes was deciding to try making onion dip. This is so not the same thing you buy prepared at the grocery store in plastic tubs. This goes into the to-die-for category.

Caramelize your onions however you prefer. I prefer to let time do the work, so I load up a large slow cooker with thinly sliced onions, top it with a chopped up stick of salted butter and sprinkle in 3 tablespoons of dry white wine. Let cook for 12 hours on low and you wind up with gloriously tasty golden brown goodness. Caramelized onions freeze fairly well, and having these in your back pocket is like cheating.

 

Caramelized onion rosemary dip

Adapted from epicurious.com and several other random bits of inspiration.

Ingredients

3 onions, thinly sliced, then caramelized in butter and white wine

8 ounces cream cheese, softened

½ cup mayonnaise

½ cup sour cream

½ teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1 tablespoon (or more or less to taste) of finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Combine cream cheese, mayonnaise, sour cream, garlic powder and Worcestershire sauce in a food processor until smooth. Transfer to a bowl.

Chop caramelized onions into desired size; you want them small enough that they will easily fit on a cracker but not so fine that they disappear. 

Stir onions and rosemary into dip. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.

This makes a fair amount, but it disappears more quickly than your average dip, so plan accordingly.

Rating: This is a highly addictive, dangerous substance.

Tahini cilantro dip

Adapted from “Classic Party Fare” by Martha Rose Shulman.

Ingredients

1 cup plain yogurt

½ cup tahini

Juice of 2 limes

3 to 4 garlic cloves, minced

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

¾ cup cilantro leaves

Method

Combine yogurt, tahini, lime juice, garlic, cumin and cayenne in a food processor. Puree until smooth.

Chop cilantro leaves. Add to yogurt mixture and combine. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Rating: Nice. Not overwhelmingly garlicky or cilantro-y, just bright flavors. It’s a perfectly respectable dip, although it gets overshadowed when placed on the same table with caramelized onion dip. Certainly a viable option for when you're looking around to make a dip that you have the ingredients for. 

Both of these are valid choices for the many holiday gatherings we wind up attending or hosting. 

If you need more holiday gift inspiration for cooks, check out the Harry Potter house-themed spatulas. I'm sure Gryffindor is the most popular, but luckily for me and my blue kitchen, I always test as Ravenclaw through and through.

Leek and squash bread pudding

 

This recipe used up the last of my fairly minimal leek harvest. Need to grow more next season -- which could apparently be any day now: Last week I got my first 2018 garden catalog the same day as I got the first holiday card of the season. 

And no, I'm not just being politically correct in not calling it a Christmas card: It was in fact a happy solstice card. Besides, if I'm going to be PC about this extended festival that happens in the darkest time of year, does that mean I have to give up glitter to save the ocean? Say it isn't so. Clearly I need comfort food.

Fall squash and leek bread pudding

From Bon Appetit, November 2017, a recipe requested by a reader from Quality Eats in New York.

Ingredients

4 tablespoons butter

12 cups 1-inch pieces of brioche

1 small butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into ½-inch chunks

2 large leeks, white and light green parts only, cut into ½-inch pieces

1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper, divided

2 teaspoons kosher salt

4 large eggs

3 cups heavy cream

3 cups whole milk

1 teaspoons sugar

1½ cups grated cheese such as a mix of aged Gouda, Gruyere and Emmenthal

Method

In a 350-degree oven, toast brioche crumbs on a rimmed baking sheet until golden. It takes 20-25 minutes, and toss them part way through and watch them closely toward the end since they go from golden to cinders pretty quickly. Let cool.

Heat 4 tablespoons butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Cook squash, leeks and thyme until squash is tender, stirring occasionally. This will take about 15 minutes or so. Add 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper and season with a bit of salt. Remove from heat and set aside.

Whisk eggs, cream, milk, sugar, 2 teaspoons salt and another 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper in a large bowl.

Add brioche cubes to vegetable mixture in skillet. Stir in 1 cup of the cheese.

Put brioche and vegetable mixture into a greased 13-by-9 pan. Pour 5 cups of the egg mixture on top and press down to coat. Pour in remaining egg mixture and let set for 15 minutes. (Or cover and refrigerate at this point for baking the next day; just bring it up to room temperature before baking.) Scatter remaining ½ cup cheese over the top and bake until puffed and custard is set in the middle, 60-75 minutes. Let cool slightly before slicing or you’ll have a mess on your hands.

Makes 8 reasonable servings.

Rating: Nice, but needs something is the entry I put in my food diary for this one. Brioche makes a nice strata, but it's sweet and all those ingredients are pretty mild. Perhaps a touch more cayenne? It seemed to taste a bit better reheated as leftovers, and I don't think that was just because I was happy to have a reasonably tasty meal that I didn't have to fix on a work night. It's close, at any rate; just needs something to kick it up a notch.