New Year's Eve

Camellia blossoms cloaked in ice today. They'll be in bloom by March. Hope springs eternal.

Is that you I see over there, 2010? I’ve been looking forward to getting to know you.

And 2009, so long, farewell. I’ve cooked a lot of wonderful food, grown some amazing crops and flowers in the garden, read a zillion books and learned so much about so many things. But I'm ready to move on.

This blog, something I muttered about for months, was born in March (albeit quietly), but now calls to me frequently. Between the blog, the inspirational Food52 site, and my new ‘invisible’ friends on Twitter, this December 31 looks very different than 12/31/08.

Last year, I was a landscape designer who cooked. I had one client and that wasn't working out too well. And business had completely dried up with the economy. It was a bleak landscape, indeed.

Now, it seems, I’m a cook who writes and gardens. Maybe teaches, too. Not a day goes by without pondering what the heck I’m doing with all this. Maybe 2010 will be when I figure it out. For now, I’m just putting one foot in front of the other, going with what feels right, and cooking to beat the band.

Since college, when I bartended at a very popular bar, I have avoided the Circle of Hell that is New Year’s Eve. Ours will be spent at home, just the two of us. Well, four, if you count Dylan and Beans.

We’ll have a nice dinner. I’ll open a big burgundy from the wine stash. There will be Buzzed Brownies from Sugar & Spike (so fantastic, I immediately had to freeze 8 of the dozen received.) We’ll watch a movie or two. Up & Taking Woodstock are waiting in their happy Netflix packages. It’s unlikely I’ll be awake at midnight.

I am immensely grateful to everyone who visits me here. Wishing you a very happy, healthy new year.

grass fed & finished steak from Stoneyman Gourmet Farmer (Bethesda Women's Market), rubbed in spices and brown sugar

Recipes for a quiet New Year’s Eve:

Parmesian Cod (for Dennis)

Cowboy Steak (for me)

Sweet Potato Gratin (maybe Potatoes Anna, haven’t yet decided. )

Grilled Brussel Sprouts

Parmesian Cod
(Something I saw Jamie Oliver make, I think.)
Serves 1

2/3 lb Cod, or one fillet
½ c Flour
1 egg
½ c Parmesian Cheese, freshly grated
Pinch cayenne
½ avocado
½ lemon
A good handful of mache or tender arugula
Olive oil

Get out a non-stick pan – do not attempt in anything else. Seriously.

Rinse the fish fillet and pat dry.

Set up a dredging station. You’ll need two flat plates and one pan or shallow bowl with sides.

Put ½ c flour on a plate, season with salt and pepper, and place it on the left.

Whisk up the egg with a little water in the pan. Give it a pinch of salt & pepper, too. This goes in the center.

On the other plate, stir together the cheese, a tablespoon of flour and the cayenne and place that plate on the right.

Now, with your left hand, place the fish in the flour. Pat the flour into the flesh, turn, and pat the flour into the other side.

Next, using your right hand, pick up the fillet and dip it into the egg mixture. Both sides.

Again, using your RIGHT (wet) hand, place the wet fillet into the dry cheese. Use your LEFT (dry) hand, to pat the cheese into the fish on both sides.

You can do this prep an hour or so before dinner. Just put the fish back in the fridge to stay cold, and remove 10 minutes or so before cooking.

Ready to cook? Heat a whisper of oil in the non-stick pan until a drop of water sizzles.

Slip in the fish and cook on medium high for 4 minutes or so. The cheese should be nice and brown and crispy. Turn and do the same to the other side.

While the fish cooks, toss a handful of mache with olive oil (I have some heavenly Pistachio Oil from the LeBlanc Huilerie on Rue Jacob, Paris. That's what I'll use.) Add salt & pepper and pile the mache on the plate.

Top with the cooked fish, and the avocado half, cubed, and add a healthy squeeze of lemon juice to the whole thing.

Serve piping hot.

A Tale of Two Desserts- Part One: Trifle

It's a perfect Christmas here at our house. It's our tradition to spend the day together, just the two of us (plus dog and cat.) We enjoy a leisurely breakfast - today I made apple fritters and, for me, a couple of my homemade breakfast sausages. We lingered around the tree with our coffee and tea, opening gifts and making and receiving holiday phone calls.
The afternoon has been spent watching movies on TV, noshing on whatever we could find in the fridge. That included last night's leftover Parisian-style gnocchi with butternut squash and shitake mushrooms.
But this post isn't about breakfast, or about dinner. It's about dessert.

At the last minute, I invited a friend to have Christmas Eve dinner with the two of us. Now, if dinner had just been the two of us, I wouldn't have made any dessert. Dennis is perfectly happy without sweet temptations and I'm so happy to have them, I'll eat too much. But with another dessert eater coming over, I was ready to give in to temptation.

Just two days ago, in a lovely Christmas moment, a friend sent us an astonishingly delicious butter rum cake from Sugar & Spike. It was so good, and with a nudge from that same friend, thought suddenly about Trifle.

A traditional holiday sweet, trifle is made up of jam-smeared cake slices, doused in booze, then layered with creme anglaise/vanilla cream and fruit. Several of these layers are then topped with sweetened whipped cream.
I could already tell this butter rum cake would layer beautifully in a trifle. I peered into the depths of the refrigerator and saw about 3 oz of apricot glaze leftover from tart-making, three egg yolks leftover from some meringue art (post forthcoming,) - those would make a beautiful vanilla sauce, just add cream and milk and vanilla bean. I had some raspberries and blueberries. And there were all the wonderful liqueurs from the summer fermenting. In a glorious moment of inspiration, I remembered David Lebovitz' candied cherries (from A Perfect Scoop.) Suddenly, a trifle was born. I put it together in the early afternoon. By the dessert hour, it was heavenly. While making the trifle, I thought "this is how trifle came to be." finding bits and pieces all around the kitchen that come together in delicious beauty.
Trifle
Serves 4

Leftover pound cake, stollen or pannetone, about six slices
Jam - raspberry or apricot seems best
Brandy or Apricot or Peach liqueur
Vanilla custard (3 egg yolks, 1/4 c sugar, 1/2 c milk, 1/2 c cream, 1 tsp vanilla)
1 pt Raspberries, blueberries
Candied cherries**
1/2 c whipping cream, whipped to soft peaks
A beautiful glass bowl, about 1 qt size

Make the vanilla custard. Heat the cream and milk (I use the microwave and heat for about a minute.)
In a small saucepan, whisk together the sugar and egg yolks. Stream in the cream/milk mixture slowly, whisking all the time. Keeping the heat at medium, stirring constantly, the custard should thicken in about 5 minutes. Stir in the vanilla. Continue to heat until slightly thickened - stir with a wooden spoon, then drag your finger through the custard on the back of the spoon. When the line remains, the custard is done.)
Strain through a sieve into a bowl set in an ice bath, to cool the custard quickly.
Now make the trifle.
Start by spreading jam on one side of the cake slices.
Begin the layers with two or three slices of the cake pressed into the bottom of the bowl.
Sprinkle a healthy slosh of liqueur over the cake.
Add a few raspberries.
Add 1/3 of the custard.
Start again with the jammy cake slices - and repeat the whole process two more times.
Cover with plastic and pop in the 'fridge for at least two hours.
No more than two hours before you are going to serve the trifle, cover the top with whipped cream.
If you have raspberries left over, place them on the top of the trifle.
**I made the candied cherries using some sour cherry jam I made last summer than never quite jelled. I just cooked them down forever until all the liquid was gone, then carefully plucked them apart onto parchment paper to dry a bit. The recipe/idea from A Perfect Scoop - an indispensible ice cream cookbook by David Lebovitz. It's such a treasure, I suggest you put it on your wish list right away!)

Chill the trifle well and serve cold.

Merry Christmas from my kitchen to yours.

Christmas Eve appetizers gravlax, dill mustard, marcona almonds, kalamata olives,
Stoneyman Gourmet Farmer Hillandale Tomme. jack rose cocktails.