Showing posts with label christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label christmas. Show all posts

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Infused Vodka

I began an infusing project today, it's like canning for lazy people, you pop some fruit and sugar and vodka in a mason jar, screw on the top and wait.  According to my research it is not at all as fiddly as real canning where if you do it wrong you can give everyone botulism, The New York Times says "preserving with alcohol is the lowest rung of entry for canning enthusiasts because it's hard to mess up."  And with that kind of endorsement, how can you resist?  I am not entirely sure how long you wait, I am just going to play it by ear and do some periodic taste testing.  In honor of the upcoming holiday season I decided to do a cranberry vodka, a pomegranate vodka and an apple/honey/cinnamon/clove vodka (and then a cranberry and pomegranate combined one because I had leftovers).  The red fruits look lusciously christmasy already, and this is an acceptable pre-Christmas sort of thing, unlike stores that already have their holiday displays up or a certain shopping center that I drove by last night that has a lit up tree out already.  I mean come on, I LOVE Christmas and fully admit that after Thanksgiving dinner until Christmas day the only music I listen to is on my Christmas Carols playlist (there's 301 songs on it, soon to be 313, as soon as I get the She & Him cd....) but you have to show some restraint.    


            























To make the pomegranate vodka, start with a pomegranate (or two).  If you already have a technique for getting the little seeds out then by all means use it, but if you don't I would suggest cutting the fruit in half and then submerging it in water to remove the seeds, otherwise you may end up staining you entire self and kitchen with little splatters of bright red juice.  Then grab your mason jar, or other airtight container and add your pomegranate seeds.  My rule of thumb (which I use very loosely and developed today, so after I see how these turn out I may change it) is this, I have quart jars, I used two cups of fruit, however much sugar struck my fancy and then filled it up with vodka, when I had less fruit I used less vodka.  Anyways, toss in some sugar and then a bit of orange peel, put the lid on your jar and let it sit.  Possibly for several weeks, I will let you know when I figure that bit out.



To make the cranberry vodka, take a bag of cranberries, toss them in a sauce pan, add a bit of water, a generous sprinkle of sugar and boil until the cranberries start to pop, which brings me to the second guideline I developed today, fruit with a tough skin should be helped along, either cut open or cooked, and fruit with a coating should be skinned.  Remove from the heat and pour two cups of the cranberry/sugar water mixture into your jar and top it off with vodka.  I would have added some orange peel to this but my mother isn't such a big fan of the orange-cranberry combination so I left it out, but feel free to add it if you wish.  One bag of cranberries will probably give you a bit more fruit than you need, but my two pomegranates did as well, so I combined the extra in one jar and topped it off with vodka.  


























For the apple vodka, because I used a grocery store apple with that lovely waxy coating on it, I peeled it first, but I would imagine that if you had a farm fresh, uncoated apple you could leave the peel on without any problem.  Then, because I have big plans to use this to spike some Good Earth tea, I poured honey in instead of using sugar, as the tea and honey combination is such a lovely one.  Toss in half a cinnamon stick and a whole clove and top with vodka.  I have a feeling this one will not take very long to infuse, considering that there is so much surface area of exposed apple flesh.  For now all of my vodkas are sitting on my bar cart, which considering how cold my house always is, is a cool place, although not very dark.  I imagine that due to my obsessive nature I will shake the jars every day to stir them up and see how it is going and will probably start tasting them in about a week to see how flavorful they are becoming.  When they taste good I will strain them through cheesecloth and pour them back into their mason jars until I can be bothered to find/repurpose suitable bottles.  I will let you know how they turn out.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Merry Christmas!

I would like to wish you a very merry Christmas!

Full of pretty cookies

Raviolis

Maybe a snowball fight or two


And all those special people you call family!

Friday, December 24, 2010

Nigella's Gingerbread

I may have mentioned this before, but I like molasses.  I like the syrupy ribbons it makes when you pour it out of the jar, I like the name "Grandma's Robust Molasses,"  I like it in cookies and breads, and bbq sauce.  This gingerbread has its fair share of molasses as well as fresh ginger and a lovely lemon glaze that is a great contrast to the moist, sticky cake underneath.  Also, it is a Nigella recipe and you all know how I feel about her, anything she makes is worth a try and is most likely amazing.

Start by melting the butter, brown sugar, corn syrup, molasses, cinnamon, and ginger together.  I was afraid of burning the sugar so I did this over pretty low heat.
Then remove the melty sugar mixture from the heat and mix in the eggs, milk and baking soda.

Put the flour in a bowl and pour the liquid ingredients in, mix well.  Like Nigella says, it will be a VERY liquid batter, thus making it a bit difficult to mix well, I had to use a whisk to get the lumps out.  

Pour into a foil lined pan.

Bake for about an hour, until it is firm in the middle.

Once the gingerbread is cool you can make the icing, I had to double the icing recipe and didn't use any water, it was the right consistency with just the lemon juice and powdered sugar.  Once the icing is set cut into squares, like the ones on the middle tier.  

Gingerbread with Lemon Icing from How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson
1/2 c. plus 2 T butter
1/2 c. plus 2 T brown sugar
3/4 c. plus 1 T corn syrup
3/4 c. plus 1 T molasses
2 t fresh ginger, grated
1 t cinnamon
1c. plus 2 T milk
2 lg eggs, beaten
1 t baking soda, dissolved in 2 T warm watter
2 c. flour

Icing: 2 T lemon juice
1 c. plus 4 T powdered sugar, sifted

Preheat oven to 325
In a saucepan, melt the first 6 ingredients together over low heat.
Remove from the heat and mix in the milk, baking soda and eggs.
Pour over the flour and mix well, it will be very wet.
Pour into a foil lined 12x8 pan and bake for 45 min to an hour until risen and firm.
Let cool, then make the icing by whisking together the sugar and lemon juice, if needed thin with a bit of warm water.  
Spread the icing over the gingerbread, let it set, and cut into squares. 


Saturday, December 4, 2010

Emma's Eats Gift Guides: Meat

Images from Williams-Sonoma
Some people are unabashedly meat eaters, solidly in the carnivore camp, and while I wouldn't quite put myself in that category I do sympathize and thus have come up with some ideas for the steak and potatoes types out there.  I thought I would start with bacon, the gateway meat (everyone loves bacon, even vegetarians have professed a fondness for smelling the stuff cooking).  I normally bake my bacon because I am lazy and it is easy, but for the slightly more motivated bacon cooker, a bacon press will help the bacon cook more evenly and quickly, and as an added bonus, you can use it to make a panini.  I am a big fan of using scissors in the kitchen, after all we all learned to use scissors before knives (at least I hope so....) and hacking away at a hunk of meat with a big knife seems much more dangerous and difficult than using poultry shears.  And Martha Stewart uses them, so there's that.  Mini grilling thermometers are adorable and are perfect for someone who throws summer BBQ's and wants to make sure that every steak is cooked to the perfect temperature.  Pair the thermometers with a carving board, little pyramids keep the meat from sliding around and the well traps any juices that escape, and you have the perfect gift for grilling and serving.  For the serious meat lover a sausage stuffer is an original gift idea, this one attaches to a KitchenAid mixer, and opens up a whole world of gourmet ground meat products.                       

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Emma's Eats Gift Guides: Gadgets

Images from Target

According to my dictionary a gadget is a "small mechanical device or tool, especially an ingenious or novel one," and these are gifts for the people that love them.  The beauty of gadgets is that you can find one that can make life easier for just about anyone, and at any price range.  There are tons of gadgets out there, so I am only featuring a few that take your basic kitchen stuff and bumps it up a notch, upgrades it to something a little more gift-worthy.  A scale is like an upgraded set of measuring cups, millions of people bake weight instead of volume (kind of like how everyone else is all about the metric system, and America would rather not, thanks but no thanks) anyways, they swear by it and it is a more accurate form of measurement.  You may want to include a cookbook with weight measurements in it though, such as Ratio by Michael Ruhlman.  I developed a fondness for electric kettles when I lived in Ireland, they heat water more quickly than a standard kettle on the stovetop and they shut themselves off automatically when the water boils so there is no putting water on for tea, getting distracted and forgetting it on the stove.  My grandmother has one and LOVES it.  An immersion blender is a cooler blender.  Have you ever made a blended soup?  Transferring it to the blender and back to the pot is a huge pain, and there is the explosion factor when you blend hot soup that makes it exciting, but I would rather not have to worry about nearly boiling soup ending up coating my entire kitchen, enter the immersion blender.  Thinking about using a traditional blender over an immersion one doesn't really seem like that big of a deal until you do it for the first time and then you will see, life is better on the immersion side.  A programmable crock pot is pretty self explanatory, crock pots aren't exactly considered sexy, but give  a foodie who works all day complete control of the meal that is cooking all day on their counter and it is like having a personal mini robot chef in a way.  My last suggestion, a Thermos food jar, is also not very sexy, but according the Thermos people, it can keep hot food hot for 5 hours and cold food cold for 7, hello upgraded tupperware and a fabulous bag lunch, sometimes all a girl needs to get through the morning is the thought of a luscious lunch awaiting her.



Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Emma's Eats Gift Guides: Baking

Images from Sur la table
It's December and you know what that means, time to start doing some serious shopping.  I thought I would put together a few ideas for those of you who have foodies in your lives.  Now some people may not be excited to get a good quality baking sheet for Christmas, these are not the kind of people I have in mind for these presents.  Speaking of which, my suggestions for the baker in your life includes jellyroll pans, they are heavy duty and can be used for baking cookies or roasting vegetables or anything in between.  Combine the pans with silicone mats to put on them for baking and a cooling rack for when they come out of the oven and you have a great gift for someone who is just starting to get into baking or moving out on their own and now needs to stock their kitchen from scratch.  For the more established baker who already has everything, cookies cutters and cupcake papers in nontraditional shapes and colors are a fun idea.  A tiered server or cake stand for dishing those treats up to family and friends can work as a gift for just about anyone who likes to bake, there are so many to pick from that you can find one to match any personality.  And of course there are always cookbooks, because who doesn't love a new cookbook?