Apple Cider, Ginger and Cranberry Punch

Since Martha loves ginger and cranberries, I thought she might be interested in this punch recipe that mixes both with apple cider. I emailed it to her a couple weeks ago, and when I arrived in MA, she'd bought all of the ingredients and we gave it a try. Pretty good! Not something you could drink all night, but a nice way to get the party started.

Fresh Spinach Fettuccine

When I was home in Massachusetts for Christmas, I stole Martha's never-used KitchenAid pasta roller/cutter attachment. Upon returning to DC, I immediately made good use of it by making some pretty tasty spinach fettuccine... I thought making pasta would be really difficult, but it actually wasn't that bad! Time consuming and a little messy, yes, but not hard. The roller attachment certainly got the pasta significantly thinner than hand-rolled pasta I've made in the past!I used the spinach pasta recipe straight from the KitchenAid instruction/recipe booklet- pretty light and tasty, and uses ingredients you'd probably have around the house (flour, eggs, frozen spinach). Served the fresh pasta with some of the frozen roasted tomato sauce from the summer, jazzed up with some cream and Romano cheese.
Next step: ravioli!

Julia Child's Beef Bourguignon

After cooking it for a book club dinner centered on Julia Child's My Life in France, Martha has adopted Julia's beef bourguignon recipe and made it her own. It's her signature dish now.

She made it for our post-Christmas gathering (which was somewhat crippled by the East Coast blizzard of 2010), and it was awesome- meaty, rich, tender, complex.
Served it with mashed parsnips (plenty of cream and butter) and sauteed green beans. Yum.

Sloppy Joes and Kohlrabi/Apple/Carrot Slaw

Remember way back when I made these "adult" sloppy joes (wow, that sounds dirty!)? Yeah, they're still good. Bourbon, smoked paprika, cayenne... mmmm.

Served them with this awesomely simple crunchy slaw made from kohlrabi (that alien-looking member of the Brassica family), Granny Smith apples and carrots with cider vingar, olive oil and honey (I skipped the swiss chard stems in the recipe...).

Curried Squash, Cauliflower and Apple Soup with Pizza Dough Breadsticks

With 3 days to go before braving I-95 and heading home for the holidays, I found myself trying to find uses for the random assortment of veggies crowding my fridge and counter. Cue curried winter squash/cauliflower/apple soup, served with apple/walnut/goat cheese/pomegranate salad and pizza dough breadsticks.

Loosely based on a couple of recipes, the soup came out pretty well! I took the veggie cues from this one (although I used one kabocha squash, a whole head of cauliflower, and 2 apples) and the spices from this one (plus a couple teaspoons of garam masala). Swirled in some sour cream when I served it.

Then, for the breadsticks, I used leftover pizza dough from the other night, and generally followed these instructions for turning them into twisty breadsticks. I brushed mine with olive oil and sprinkled them with garlic salt. Mine didn't poof up as much as hers did, but that's probably because I was using dough that was several days old. They were tasty anyway!

Black Pepper Beef Jerky!

Mike and Jamie gave me a dehydrator for my birthday back in September, but all I've made since then was some dried apples, which were good, but not earth shattering. I resolved to take my dehydrator training wheels off and engage the dehydrator in a more substantial and ambitious endeavor: beef jerky. After reading/drooling over an article in Food & Wine about homemade artisan beef jerky, I went with a black pepper beef jerky, which uses beef top round, sliced thinly and marinated in soy sauce, Worchestershire, lager and copious amounts of crushed black peppercorns. The recipe is super simple and the dehydrator made quick work of it (4 hours), despite the warnings that beef jerky could take between 4 and 12 hours to dry. The results were delicious, although probably not the most photogenic of all the things I have cooked. Chewy, spicy, meaty...

Butternut and Caramelized Onion Pizza

Wow, this pizza was pretty awesome... the sweetness of the butternut, creamy mozzarella, spicy/garlicky oil on the crispy crust, earthy sage and caramelized onions. Awesome.

Inspired by, but not adhering to these recipes, I whipped up a batch of the same pizza dough and used the same upside-down cookie sheet method I used a few weeks ago on my kale pizzas. Then I topped the pies with olive oil that had been marinating with red pepper flakes and a ton of garlic, laid thin slices of fresh mozzarella and roasted butternut squash, tossed on some caramelized red onions, and sprinkled it with minced sage, parsley and Romano cheese. So good with a green salad on the side!