Christmas Treats, Part 1

Yes I realize it is JANUARY but obviously I am behind in posting. Anyway, if I posted ahead of time, then the surprise would be ruined! Um yeeeeah, that's the story I'm sticking to.

Every year around October or November, I embark the yearly tradition of making treat items for close family and friends. Sometimes they are old recipes that I love, and other times they are brand-new and I'm hoping they are a hit! It's a lot of work and even though every freaking year I swear I will NEVER do it again, somehow I end up in the kitchen burning the midnight oil.

This year I made some old favorites: Cook's Illustrated gingerbread cookies, almond toffee (dark chocolate, thank you), and chocolate-orange cookies. But this year I made a couple of new ones as well. The first...

Homemade Peanut Butter Cups!

(I just realized I have pictures of the steps but no pictures of the resulting product! Boo)

Now, you may be asking yourself, why the heck would you want to make your own peanut butter cups when Reese's peanut butter cups are so easily available (and undoubtedly cheaper)? Well, I'll tell you... (1) the novelty (I like to bake for fun okay?) and (2) because there aren't as many ingredients I don't recognize. TBHQ anyone?

I followed this recipe from Baking Bites because it seemed simple enough. The only change I made was to use all crunchy peanut butter because honestly, who keeps two types of peanut butter in their pantry? It was a relatively easy process, except somewhat time-consuming because each stage involved refrigerating the cups to get the chocolate to harden. You want to make these on a nice, lazy afternoon. Not at uh, 10 pm. Not that I know what that is like.

I also found that I ended up using A LOT of chocolate overall. Definitely not cheaper than the Hershey product since I was using higher quality chocolate.

The resulting product didn't taste like a Reese's Peanut Butter cup. It didn't quite have that sickly sweet junk food taste. It tasted more like something from a gourmet chocolate shop, with a crunchy bite to the chocolate and chunks of gooey peanut butter inside. Delicious!

I want to try them with almond butter next time...

Torch me!

R got a creme brulee set for Christmas. While I'm generally not a fan of creme brulee (yes, even at Donovan's), I told him I'd make the custards and we'd torch them together.

I wasn't quite sure what was in creme brulee but when I started looking for recipes, I became even less of a fan. The basic mixture consists of heavy cream, egg yolks, and sugar. Can we say heart attack?

I decided on making Alton Brown's version since I generally enjoy his recipes. It wasn't difficult at all and in 15 minutes, I was ready to fill the ramekins.

Unfortunately, the ramekins that came in the creme brulee set were impossibly tiny and I ended up with WAY more custard than ramekins! They might have held all of 2 ounces each. I had reserved 2 ramekins for myself (more on that later), and luckily had a couple of 4 oz ramekins, but even after that, I still had mixture left! I ended up filling a pie plate with the rest. Yes, it's a creme brulee lover's fantasy!

I didn't want to ingest the high quantities of cream and egg yolks so I made my own vegan version out of tofu. Mmmmm.... tofu. You laugh, but it was a tasty substitute! I realize it doesn't look appetizing either but the brown color is from the cinnamon! Jeez.

I also didn't have enough roasting pans for all of the ramekins so I couldn't bake all of them in the water bath as directed. I found out why the water bath is necessary.... without it, the top of the custard browns slightly and it looks almost as if it already had sugar on it. Oh well, I wasn't serving this to anyone so it didn't matter. This one was obviously done with the water bath. I love the little flecks of vanilla beans.
The custards baked up and I left them in the fridge overnight. The following evening, R came over with the torch. We dusted them with sugar and went at it.


He went a little crazy with the sugar so it is more burned-looking than it should be. He gave his seal of approval though. He was ready to eat 3 of them!


Good GF points = 100.

Cheeky's

I wanted to find a yummy breakfast place to go to as a treat for hiking the previous day. Cheeky's had good reviews online and I was intrigued by the "flight" of bacon. We got there around 10:30 am on Sunday morning and easily had a prime outside seat. BTW, the weather is perfect in the desert right now. Water was promptly provided in a large sealed glass bottle, opened at our table and poured into iced glasses. Fancy.

Their menu changes weekly. I ordered the maple sage sausage hash, parsnip, carmelized onion, apple and poached eggs ($9.00), he ordered the Blondie's egg benedict with hash browns ($13) and a coffee and orange juice. The juice was freshly squeezed and also served out in a what looked like a lab beaker.



We split the flight of bacon. We should have had the waitress tell us which pieces of bacon were which because we weren't able to tell based on taste. Not that they weren't tasty -- they were definitely crispy (a bacon-MUST) but none had enough overwhelming flavor that we could easily determine the flavor. After looking back at the menu online, I'm surprised because none of them overwhelmingly tasted like jalapeno or espresso, and yet, that's what we had! The complete flight was:
- Nodine's Smokehouse
- Applewood
- Jalapeno
- Maple Crusted
- Espresso bacon

But like I said, I have NO idea which ones the jalapeno and espresso ones were.



I liked the hash. Carmelized onions, apple sausage, crunchy parsnips and different types of potatoes with a perfect poached egg on top. I swirled my potatoes into the egg yolk. Mmmmm.



He said he liked the eggs benedict but that the addition of the cheddar scone might have made the meal too heavy. You mean eggs benedict can be light?

Service was attentive, food was good, and we were pleased.

San Francisco Food!

Koi Palace in Daly City for dim sum. Steph said it was the best... they had a lot of usual things in addition to the typical dim sum fare. You order both from the menu and the few carts that pass by. Although not as "fun", I kind of like the idea of ordering from a menu because then you're sure to get the items you want and they're fresh.

Some favorites were the red bean paste crepes (accidentally ordered because we thought they were something else) and the Shanghai dumplings (notice how there is only one left!).



Other unusual things were tried were the pumpkin red bean mochi:



and the durian puff pastry:



No one cared for this. I thought it was okay but you probably have to like durian to like this (I do).

The place is PACKED so it's a good thing we got there right when they opened at 10 am.

...



We went to The House for Jon's birthday. It's tiny so it's a good thing we had a reservation. Everything was presented beautifully and the service was great. They had 2 or 3 specials for the night but we ended up ordering off the menu.

ahi tuna tartare with roasted nori chips:



Jon had the wasabi noodles with angus flatiron steak and Kameran and Stephanie both had the grilled sea bass (no photos - they came out blurry!).

I ordered two "small" dishes, the deep fried salmon roll:



and the crab cake:



That's some crab cake! I'm not sure if it was supposed to be a pear or a volcano?

Everything was DELICIOUS. Seriously.

...

For dessert, Steph took us to Chaya for chocolate croissant bread pudding:



It was like creme brulee! Caramel ice cream slowly melting on top of a sweet custard dotted with pops of chocolate. Heavenly.

It's not fall without apple pie!

Part of the Fall season means taking a trip to Julian for apple pie. Now add to the list of apple pies places I've tried: Apple Alley Bakery. Apple Alley is located in a small alley sandwiched between the Julian Drug Store and the Julian Cafe. It is a small shop serving lunch and pies. They also have a selection of other pastries, turnovers, tarts, and cookies. We got the lunch special which included your choice of 1/2 sandwich, soup or salad, chips, and a slice of pie for $8.95. The sandwich was just meh (I got the vegetarian) but it was just enough food so that I was still hungry for pie. They have several different types but these were the two we chose:

Apple Boysenberry


Caramel Pecan Apple


They were good, but I can't compare them to the others since they weren't traditional apple pies and it's been so long since I've had actual pie from Julian Pie Company or Mom's. This may call for a blind taste test in the future... you know, for "research purposes."

Persimmon Pickin'

I've recently been eating a lot of persimmons. It all started while I was having a conversation with a coworker in the kitchen at work. I was lamenting the loss of delicious summer fruits.

"But persimmons!" she said. "It's persimmons season!"

Another coworker overheard us, and told us you can go picking for persimmons here in San Diego. He sent me a link and we went this afternoon.

The place is called Bar 2 Ranch and it's in Pauma Valley near the base of Palomar Mountain. They hand you a large kitty litter container for use, shears, then off you go!



There are many rows of trees and plenty of fruit when we went. It wasn't too bad for a shorty like me to pick them either.



All the persimmons were Fuyu persimmons but the stand also sold the Hachiya type as well. We picked about half a bucket's worth which was almost 12 pounds. It was 70 cents per pound.

The stand also sold pomegranates ($1/lb!), limes, and these mysterious-looking things:



Can you guess what it is???

If you smelled it you would guess that it's a ...

L E M O N ! ! ! ! !

Yep. Never seen a lemon like THAT before. Crazy, right?

A Presentation of Pumpkin

I love Fall. It is absolutely my favorite season. I love looking forward to cold nights, being able to layer my clothes and jackets and snuggle in with hot chocolate and a cat (or two). I also love being able to eat or drink anything with pumpkin. It absolutely makes my day.

And so, I bring you a pumpkin-y post!

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Biscotti

I used a recipe from epicurious and modified it a little. Having no white chocolate or food processor, I replaced the chocolate with about 1/2 cup finely chopped semi-sweet chocolate chips. I added some more pecans and substituted 1/2 teaspoons each of ground cloves, cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg for the pre-mixed pumpkin pie spice (I think it's about the same, but maybe a little spicier). I thought the recipe was fantastic, producing soft biscotti that didn't break my teeth eating them straight up but didn't crumble when dipped in coffee. The sweet/spicy combo was great.


"Spicy Holiday Muffins"

This recipe was nicked from “Just Muffins” compiled by Gaye Hansen, a small red book my parents bought on their honeymoon in Canada. I think they bought it from street vendor, it looks almost hand written and has apparently made some fantastic muffins over the years. This is no exception.

1c milk
1c pumpkin puree
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 c oil
2c flour
1/4c sugar
3tsp baking powder
1tsp salt
1/2tsp ground cardamon
1/2tsp cinnamon
1/4tsp nutmeg

topping:
1tbsp butter
1/4c chopped nuts
3tbsp sugar
1/4tsp cinnamon

Mix all the wet, add all the dry. Fill tins 3/4 full and top with melted butter, cinnamon sugar and nuts. Bake for 20-25 min at 400 degrees.


Savory Three-Cheese Pumpkin Soup


As I have mentioned, I love pumpkin. And while it shines in sweet recipes, I have been disappointed with every over-sweetened store-bought box of pumpkin soup. Why can't we deviate a little from the norm and pair this squash with something savory? And delicious? Like cheese?
Pumpkin cheese soup, how could that not be divine? Surely someone has made it before and I should just find the recipe.
However, both AllRecipes AND Cook's Illustrated online let me down. I was bummed. Fine, I'll make it myself! So here's what I did:

4 tbsp butter
1/2 white onion, finely diced
1-2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1.5 tsp kosher salt
2 15-oz cans Libby's Pumpkin puree
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 cup grated extra sharp cheddar cheese
1 cup grated extra sharp white cheddar cheese
1 cup grated parmesean cheese
1 tbsp brown sugar
~1/2 tsp ground nutmeg (fresh is best)

In a large pot, lightly brown the butter and saute the onion and garlic until soft and translucent. Add 6c of water and bring to a boil. Add the salt, pumpkin, and cream and thoroughly mix until homogenous. Whisk in each cheese, one at a time until smooth. At the end stir in the brown sugar and nutmeg (because I was grinding a whole nutmeg, I don't really know how much I actually added, but around 1/2tsp. Flavor to taste). Let barely simmer over low heat for about 10 minutes and serve hot.

This does leave little onion chunks in an otherwise smooth soup. I don't mind them, but maybe you could try pureeing it all before you add the cheese.

Anyway, this produced a rich soup that wasn't too heavy, cheesy or sweet. I've wanted this combination for years so finally I have a recipe!