My "foodie" Dynasty

It does appear that I am the eldest of our developing Halverson foodie dynasty. I realized this on Christmas night when  everyone from myself, to my son Pete and then the grandsons participated in the creation of our Christmas dinner at Peter's house.

My teenaged grandsons provided the always required layout of dips, shrimp, and munchies. Jon, 16, made a terrific quacamole and both the boys decorated the house so that when I arrived it had all the warmth and holiday setting to make opening gifts most festive. Fire in the fireplace of course.
 Even many of our gifts related to food: a large heavy duty cutting board for me to replace my very warped standby, along with an assortment of alcoholic spirits for me to have on hand because I don't keep a large inventory of something I don't drink in the house. I gave Peter Alton Brown's new cookbook, a great book for an exhaustive treatment on just about anything to do with food. Also a gift certificate for two to Cheesetique, a cheese emporium in Alexandria.

We started the meal with grandson Chris'  terrific butternut squash/leek pureed soup. I don't know what he put into it but it had many levels of flavor and a touch of a kick. Pete baked a crown roast of pork with the little footie slippers on it, rich and succulent and worthy of a pic that now appears on Facebook. With that flavorful and deeply roasted vegetables with chopped apples and a tangy spinach. For dessert, our friend Janice supplied a pumpkin chiffon pie that was smooth and rich.  Both kids are great helpers in the kitchen and table conversation frequently relates to food and its preparation and dinners past. Jonathan at eight years old was the traditional pumpkin pie maker for the holidays and he early earned his own chef's knife to make him useful in the kitchen. His mother is an excellent cook, so I guess these guys had no choice. My late husband was chief cook when alive and while we both had demanding careers. I don't know if a passion for cooking is hereditary, but if so, good eating goes along with it.

Fish Night

Fish Night seems to have been hijacked several times in the last couple of months and last night was no exception. We had a big crowd at our house on Christmas Day for a dinner of standing rib roast (my first attempt at this -- so easy and almost fool-proof with the techniques I used) and lots of veggies. For this Fish Night, I served left-over veggies and leftover home-made dinner rolls along with a very simple shrimp dish. So, after cheese, crackers and tamarind chutney with our drinks, we sat down to green beans, scalloped potatoes and:

• Baked Shrimp Scampi – a la Barefoot Contessa. Yummy and delicious – so easy and great for advance preparation.
  

For dessert, we had chocolate fondue brought over by my neighbors – leftover from their Christmas Eve dinner. Hooray for leftovers!

This holiday season has just wiped me out – I’m ready for the New Year when I’ll do better next time.

Fish Night

I love Fish Night around the holidays.  In fact, I just love the holidays, but the food served at holiday dinners is not my favorite (to cook or to eat) so I enjoy eating foods not generally associated with the holidays and, in my world, fish is one of those foods. Last night, it was great to eat “regular” food even though the house is oozing holiday décor and the smells of holiday baking.  I fell back on an old standby – simple roasted finfish with a new and different sauce.  In fact, if you’re unsure of your seafood prep talents, this is the way to go.  It’s almost foolproof.

We had six for dinner – perfect for conversation around the table, but I do admit I love a bigger crowd with it attendant commotion.  Hugo brought a delicious sauvignon blanc – Spy Valley 2010.  I was afraid he had broken my cardinal rule – “don’t get me hooked on a wine that costs more than $20” – but this wine had me fooled.  It’s not costly and it's very grapefruit-y; if, like me, you love these characteristics, this is a wine for you.

We started with drinks and pistachios – the latter in the shell give us time to catch up on each other’s holiday plans and events.  As a first course, I served a vegetable soup that was leftover from my week-end comfort food cooking binge.  Then:

• Pan-Roasted Cod with Chorizo Vinaigrette – I love roasted mild white fish complemented with a “wow” sauce or condiment. But I just about outdid myself this time; after preparing the sauce, I almost tossed it out thinking it could not possibly complement fish.  But it was amazing!  I can't find a link to this recipe, so let me know if you'd like to have it.  Pan-roasting is a great way to cook fish.  I urge you to try this preparation – because it is so easy (see below) and so delicious.  
• Green Beans with Lemon Vinaigrette – Is this one too many vinaigrettes for a single meal?  I didn’t think so and no one complained!  This is one of my favorite ways to prepare green beans.  The recipe calls for walnuts, but I omitted them last night because the meal was already very rich.
• Carrot Celery Root Puree – Here I am with the celery root again.  What can I say?  It’s in season and I love it.  And it’s fairly easily disguised – especially in this recipe.  I had only about half the amount of celery root called for in the recipe, so I just increased the amount of carrots.  Purees are “in” these day s.  Not sure why because they are fairly boring, but this was good.
• Baked Parmesan Tomatoes – Here’s where I fall off the wagon in my attempt to eat locally and seasonally most of the time.  I love, love, love tomatoes and the Campari hothouse tomatoes at Costco actually taste like tomatoes all year round.  This is a great, simple recipe -- the finished product is shown at right.

We had banana cake with cinnamon icing for dessert – only because I had some over-ripe bananas that needed to be used.  I can’t in good conscience give you this recipe because, like pretty much every banana cake I’ve made, it was boring.  I make a mean banana bread, but I want banana cake!  Does anyone have a good recipe?

Fascinating Fish Facts:  It’s not all that fascinating, I guess, but it’s been suggested to me that preparing fish for guests presents difficult timing issues.  True, most fish dishes require cooking at the very last minute; so how do you do that when you want to spend time with your guests and not in the kitchen while they are having fun without you?  This is especially important to me so, whatever the meal, I try to serve food that does not require a lot of last minute attention and I do as much as I can before guests arrive.

Fish, however, really does require last minute cooking.  So I rarely fry fish – it smells up the house, takes a lot of time and attention, and is not all that healthy.  If you’re a backyard griller, you know that grilled fish is great.  But I’m not, so I mostly baked or broil fish (though poaching is also a good option).  If you prep the fish before your guests arrive, you can excuse yourself just before dinner is served and bake or broil the fish in less than 10 minutes.  The technique for last night’s pan-roasted cod is my very favorite and produces perfectly cooked fish with no hassle.  Its variations are limitless.

The only other point worth making is that, when serving fish, it is especially important that your side dishes take little or no last-minute effort.  For example, last night the puree was done early in the day and the just popped into the microwave while the fish was cooking.  The beans enjoyed their hot water bath while the fish was in the oven – their seasoning having been prepped earlier in the day so the flavors would meld.  The tomatoes were made oven ready before guests arrived.  So they were done by the time the fish went into the oven and we sat down to eat our soup.  Piece of cake! 

Banana cake anyone? -- we have lots left over.  If someone has a good banana cake recipe, please share and I’ll do better next time.

Plum Pudding with a Kick

Now that I'm thinking about Christmas at my grandmother's house, I remember another anecdote that I could share. We always had plum pudding for dessert with an egg custard dressing, delicious and touched with a spot of whiskey. Our family weren't drinkers and certainly my grandmother wouldn't imbibe, except for the bit she would put into the dessert at Christmas time. One year as her eyesight seemed to be getting dimmer and her memory not quite as sharp as usual, my mother watched her tip the bottle into the sauce and then a few minutes later come back and do it again, with an additional flourish. As the forks plunged into this delicacy at the table, I recall eyebrows flying up, a few coughs and someone said, "wow"! My grandmother didn't seem to notice and nothing more was said. But that had to be my first encounter with the hard stuff. I was probably 11 years old.

Philadelphia Pepper Hash Returns to my Christmas Table.

My Christmas dinners as a child almost always occurred at my grandmother's table in Haddonfield, New Jersey, an historical town quite close to Philadelphia.  We usually had standing rib roast, overdone according to my mother's taste, but that was the way my dad's family liked it. The salad served was like cole slaw but it was called "pepper hash" and my father liked to tell of how his job was to chop the peppers for the hash, evidently quite the chore given they didn't have food processors in those days. After my grandmother died, Dad lamented that he didn't have her recipe for the pepper hash and so it no longer appeared on our Christmas table.  Yesterday, I realized that we now have the internet where everyone shares old recipes and so I typed in "pepper hash". Suddenly I was met with  chat about Philadlephia pepper hash; that had to be my grandmother's recipe and I was delighted to see that others were longing for it along with me.   The website which proved to be full of all sorts of handy info for  foodies is www.seriouseats.com.

Too bad Dad didn't have a chance to enjoy his pepper hash before the internet came along to save his Christmas dinner.

Fish Night

No Fish Night yesterday because almost all my guests ended up going out of town - to a wedding in Florida or skiing in Colorado. So "Hugo" and I just went out for dinner. We planned to eat at Hank's Oyster Bar in Alexandria because they have great seafood, but we had not counted on them being closed on Mondays!

So we ended up at a nearby restaurant, but I want to mention Hank's anyway because fish lovers should definitely visit the place. They have especially good oysters, which I love! In fact, the Washington Post ran a great article not long ago about the sourcing of some of the oysters served in this restaurant. It's actually an inspiring story and I think you'll enjoy reading it.

Food Completes the Season Fun

I"m sure, along with the retailers, the restaurateurs love the holiday season. Good business for them as shoppers stop off for a meal to complete or start a busy day of tracking down bargains. The spending mood is irresistible as is the desire to incorporate food into the shopping fun. On Saturday morning, I was headed out Route 7 on a shopping mission when I was about to pass IHOP. Not having had breakfast, I decided to "hop" in and munch on some blueberry pancakes. Even though I was a "party of one", the warm and lively atmosphere was embracing as I watched families park their packages beside them on the booth seat, lift the baby into the booster chair, and laugh and banter among themselves. It was a fun place to be and I was caught in the mood. I've thought of how lunch time is also the time to celebrate, when folks get together to visit and connect, and how dinner out is a must at least once during the season, probably at a more upscale place than they would normally choose, but what the heck,  it's the HOLIDAYS!

Happy Hanukkah,  Merry Christmas to all my foodie friends.