Christmas & Boxing Day Delights

Christmas Eve 

Cottage Pie

For Christmas Eve dinner after picking up Holly from the airport, I made us a classic sort of Cottage Pie. That's a pound of ground chuck, a bag a frozen mixed veg, and half a dozen medium white potatoes cooked and mashed for the topping. Brown the beef, add the vegetables, and a couple tablespoons of Bisto tm Gravy granules to pull the mixture together. Spoon into a large glass bowl and top with mashed potatoes.

Bake at 350F for about 30 minutes. Turn the oven on Broil to get the potato topping somewhat browned and crusty, say another 10 minutes. Makes half a dozen servings.

If you use beef, it's a Cottage Pie.  Only if you use ground or cubed lamb is it a Shepherd's Pie.  Steak and Kidney Pie has... you guessed it -- cubes of steak and kidney -- plus mushrooms, peas and gravy.

Christmas Day

Strata

I actually made these dishes on Christmas Eve day, so they'd have a chance to set overnight and get even better. This year we decided to go with a Mediterranean theme, and since vegan Uncle James was in town, I made a meated and a meatless dish.

I did a Greek Pastitsio with ground chuck, spinach and cheeses layered with cavatappi noodles rather than my usual seashells. See my post from May 18th for details: http://foodingaround-kiltedcook.blogspot.com/2015/05/pastitsio-and-marmalade-my-way.html 

For the non-carnivores, I made a red sauce Vegan Lasagna with diced eggplant substituting for the ground meat. See my post from Sept 21st: http://foodingaround-kiltedcook.blogspot.com/2015/09/veggie-sides-mains.html

Boxing Day

Boxing Day began with the British monarchy, when, on the day after Christmas, they distributed boxes of leftover Royal feast, alms, and other goodies to the Royal servants and the poor. The custom was taken up by the high society houses, and eventually became celebrated as its own holiday, the day after Christmas Day.

English Roast Beef Dinner

Being originally English, Sally, her Mum and daughter Holly have always celebrated Boxing Day with an English style holiday dinner -- roast beef, roasted potatoes and parsnips, Yorkshire Puddings, and a rich dark Christmas Pudding for dessert, which is traditionally doused in brandy and set aflame.

 

Photo by Sally

This year I bought a beef tenderloin (almost 5 pounds) and tied the thin tail back on the rest of the meat before marinating and roasting. I marinated overnight with Saucy Mama's Lime Chipotle Marinade tm, thinned a bit with water. Then I roasted the beef low and slow at 250F for about 1-1/2 hours to reach a medium-rare internal temp of 135F.

Sally and Holly prepared most of the rest of the meal -- the roasted vegetables and Yorkshire Puddings. I made the horseradish sauce and the fried Brussels Sprouts. 

Sally's Mum made a wonderful Christmas Pudding.

 Christmas Pudding is somewhat similar to Fruit Cake, but a lot more cakey and moist, and not as fruited.  Very rich, it's a bit of an acquired taste.  If you look closely, you'll see that the brandy is alight.  Look closer, and you'll see that the spillage on the tablecloth is also alight!  No damage done.

DIY Horsey Sauce

The perfect accouterment for beef roast (like the Tenderloin roast I prepared) is a horseradish sauce. Sure you can buy it. But it's simple and easy to make, and you can preserve the rest of the grated root for later use.

1 Horseradish Root, 8-10" long

Mayonnaise or plain yogurt

White or Cider Vinegar

Salt

Peel the root to remove the outer tan skin. The inner part is very stringy. Use the small cutter side of your box grater (not the smallest cutter though), and reduce the root to a pile of fine white, pungent (!) shreds. Be careful, as some roots can be eye-searingly pungent! while others can be almost sweet. My one root broke down into about a cup of grated horseradish.

Sauce:

Stir to combine 1/4 cup of mayonnaise or yogurt with 2 Tbsp of fresh grated root, to start. Taste, and adjust the amount of mayo or root until you reach your happy medium.

Preserve the rest:

Let the leftover grated root sit on the counter for awhile. This allows the pungent enzymes called isothiocyanates more time to be released, making the grated root even more pungent. Adding a bit of vinegar kills the pungency development. Place the grated ginger in a small screw top jar or bottle. Add white or cider vinegar to cover. Add a pinch of salt, and stir to combine. Seal jar and store in the refrigerator, where it will last for months!

Yorkshire Puddings

These puddings are sort of a cross between a biscuit and a puff pastry. The molds are blistering hot with a pool of smoking lard in each recess. The batter is thin, almost like a crepe, and begins cooking even before the mold is returned to the oven. This recipe is "interpreted" from Sally's Dad, Ted Cushnie.

Preheat oven to 400F.

2 cups AP flour, sifted into a bowl (sifting helps make the batter thin and lump free)

2 eggs

half milk and half water, sufficient to make the batter a thick cream consistency

Make a well in the flour. Add the eggs whole, then beat them into the flour along with the milk and water. This is the tricky part. You want a really thin batter; even thinner than a crepe batter. Refrigerate the batter 15-20 minutes while the molds finish heating. 

 

Place a 'knob' of lard in each mold cavity. 

As you can see, the molds Sally has are heavy cast iron, which you might find in a antique shop.   Heat the molds 20 minutes or more, to 'smoking' hot. Carefully remove a mold from the oven (don't spill!!!). Put 2 Tbsp of batter in each cavity. 

Return the mold to the oven, cook 20-30 minutes until the Yorkshires are risen and golden brown.

Slather them with butter, or use them to mop up excess gravy.  Any way you eat them, they are really tasty!

Eggnog Bread-Cake

Sally's daughter Holly sent me this recipe, and I made it for us all when she came home for the holidays.

1 (16-oz.) package pound cake mix (ignore the package directions)

1 1/4 cups eggnog

2 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°F. Beat the ingredients together until well blended. Pour into a lightly greased 9 x 5 inch loaf pan.

Bake for 1 hour plus, until a wooden pick (I use a chopstick) inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan on a wire rack 10 minutes. Then remove loaf from the pan and cool completely (about an hour).

Can be eaten "as is", or sliced and toasted for breakfast "bread". Yuuuuummm!

Mince Pies and Cheesy-Bread

One simple, and one not-so-simple recipe for your pre-holiday and holiday gatherings.

Mince Pies with Brandy Butter

Yesterday we hosted a small gathering of friends to watch a Christmas favorite -- A Child's Christmas in Wales starring Denholm Elliot. If you haven't seen it, give yourself a Christmas treat! This year I was asked to make traditional English Mince Pies. I am not a baker. But I keep trying. One of these days I may get it right.

In the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, "mincemeat" was just that -- finely chopped meat (lamb, pork or beef), usually the lesser cuts and scraps of suet -- combined with some dried fruit and vinegar, wine or spirits. Basically ground meat with dried fruit and cheap wine for flavoring.  This would be put in a thick pastry crust to become a Pie.

Over the generations, more and more chopped dried fruit got added to the mixture until today only one company in England still makes mincemeat with meat in it.  

But the word "mince lives on.  Today, you go to a butcher's shop in England and ask for "a half kilo of mince, please" -- and get what Americans would call "a pound of hamburger".

English Mince Pies are cupcake-sized, with a thicker 'short crust' pastry so they can be free standing. Not those huge 9"-10" open-faced tarts or pies that Americans usually make. I made a double batch of the ingredients below, and came up with 26 mince pies.

12oz AP flour

Pinch of salt  

8 oz cubed Butter or an equal mix of butter and lard

1 beaten egg + cold water as needed  to bind the pastry

1 jar of mincemeat

Heat the oven to 400°F

Place the flour, butter and salt into a large bowl. Rub the butter quickly into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture resembles rough sand.

Stir  the egg into the mixture using a cold knife. Then add cold water a teaspoon at a time and stir until the mixture binds but is not sticky. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and chill for a minimum of 15 minutes, up to 30 minutes.

Spray a standard 12-cup muffin tin.

Dust a work surface lightly with a little flour and roll out two-thirds of the pastry to 1/8" thick. This is where I run into problems with this pastry -- trying to make the dough that thin and not fall apart. Could be it's just too wrm here, even on a cool winter's day.

Cut circles to line the cups of your tin. A large round cookie cutter will work if you have one. I used the tin lid from a small can we had around the house. Don't worry if the pastry doesn't quite come to the top -- but it helps.

Fill the pastry-lined cavities of the muffin tin 2/3 full with mincemeat.

Roll out the remaining pastry to the same thickness and cut smaller circles to fit as lids on the pies. Dampen the edges of the pie cups with a little cold water and pinch the lid and the edge, to seal. Make a small hole in the surface of each pie with a small sharp knife to allow the steam to escape. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 mins or until golden brown. 

 My first-ever mince pies.

 

Not my photo.  Not my pies!  These are gorgeous.

Top your mince pie with freshly whipped cream or Brandy Butter:

Brandy Butter

4 oz soft, unsalted Butter

8 oz  Confectioner's sugar

3 - 5 Tbsp Brandy or Cognac

Place the soft butter in bowl. Beat with an electric mixer until light and creamy.

Add the sugar and beat until it is incorporated.

Add the brandy or Cognac to taste and stir well.  If you add too much brandy the mixture may curdle. If it does,  just add more sugar until the mixture binds back together. Spoon the butter into a serving dish, cover and store in the fridge until required. The butter can be made up to 5 days in advance and kept in the fridge.

Rustic Mince Tart

I had a cup or so of mincemeat left, and a spare rolled-frozen pie crust in the freezer. Combine the two and you have a pretty nice 8" tart.

Bisquick tm Cheesy-Bread

Last week I told you about making a flat sort of bread  from my leftover sausage ball flour. It was so tasty I decided to try and codify the idea for you. (Besides, I forgot to take a picture!)

 Cut into wedges, this makes a great warm starter or party appetizer bread that you can schmear with butter or cheese sauce. Or slice it thin across the circle, and make a huge cheesy-bread sandwich, which you can then cut into wedges.

2 cups Bisquick

1 cup Shredded Cheddar

5-6 Tbsp Water

Stir the flour and cheese together with a fork to evenly distribute (and flour-coat) the cheese.  Add just enough water to bring the flour mixture together into a non-sticky dough. Lay out a piece of parchment paper on a baking tray, and pat the dough out into a disk about 8" in diameter and an inch thick. Bake at 400F for about 25 minutes.

Anglo-American Breakfast, Yam Soup and Meatballs

Well, we launched Sally's Poolside Cabana With Gourmet Flair on AirBnB last week, and within 24 hours had booked our first guests. Within a few days we booked several more guests for overnight to week-long stays, into February!

Decades ago, after having stayed in several BnBs, I thought how neat it would be to run one. Now we are. If you travel, even to the next nearest city, check out www.AirBnB.com. Enter a city, number of guests and when you want to travel.Much cheaper and more friendly than a glass-and-plastic hotel!

 The company is one of the most successful Internet companies, and takes very good care of both guests and hosts. It's for folks like Sally who have a cabin, a spare bedroom, a mother-in-law apartment, etc. who want to make some money on the side. In state like Florida where there are special taxes, the company collects and pays those for us, handles all the money matters, calendar and bookings, does all the marketing, and takes a very small fee for each booking. You can find AirBnB properties not just in the US and Canada, but all over the globe!

Anglo-American Full Breakfast

Part of what we offer, that few AirBnB properties do, is a cooked Full Breakfast, by yours truly. Lots of places have cold cereal, milk, juice, stale bagels, toast and store-bought jelly... that sort of thing. To me a BnB is all about the breakfast. I created a menu of a dozen or more choices. 

One of our first guests asked for the Anglo-American Breakfast, and I just had to show off my take on the classic English Breakfast. 

 

Here you have two eggs, fried tomato, sausage, baked beans, and sauteed mushrooms.  Kinda proud of the giant wine-cork trivet, too.  We had to drink a LOT of wine to make it!

Creamy Yam Soup

 Sally wanted something different for dinners during this week while I'm at the boat.  So I came up with this Creamy Yam Soup.  Even with the sweetness of the yams and the added sugar and apple, it's still more savory than my Butternut Squash-Onion-Apple soup.

3 lbs Yams, peeled and grated large on a box grater

1 Red Apple chopped small

1 cup diced Onion

1 tsp Cumin

1/2 tsp Black Pepper

1/4 tsp Cayenne

1/4 cup Brown Sugar

3/4 cup Greek Yogurt

1/2 cup Half & Half

5 cups Water

Combine everything, simmer for 20 minutes. Strain the solids away from the liquid and puree the solids. Return solids to the liquid in the pot, and cook another 30 minutes until it starts to reduce and thicken. 

 

Bisquick tm Meatballs

Sally needed another potluck item for work, and signed me up for meatballs.  There are several versions of this recipe floating around out there, with varying amounts of Bisquick per unit of sausage. Many call for far too much flour and cheese.  Mine makes a moist, dense meatball that doesn't taste 'bready'.

1-1/2lbs bulk Sausage - hot or sweet Italian, bratwurst, whatever you fancy

2 cups Bisquick

2 cups shredded Cheese

1/8 tsp Pepper, fresh cracked, of course

In a large bowl, combine the Bisquick and the cheese. Then "cut" the sausage into the Bisquick-cheese mix, in the same way you cut butter into flour for making scones. Use your Mark I hands to do the squishing, folding, squeezing and mixing. Try to incorporate all of the flour mixture into the meat, but don't worry if it won't all go into the mixture.

Pull off pieces of the breaded sausage and squeeze it in each hand 6-10 times to compress the mixture. Then roll into a 1" ball between your palms. This recipe makes about 36 balls. Place on a roasting pan or wire rack above a sheet pan to catch the drippings. Bake at 375F for 20-25 minutes. 

Leftover Bisquick-cheese mix can have a few tablespoons of water added, kneaded into a dough, and baked as a sort of cheese scone.

Next Week

Mini Mince Pies and more!

Winter Fruit Recipes, Bake Off Fiasco, Cookie Lesson

Up North, winter/holiday fruits are things like apples, cranberries and pears. Here in the tropics we have other fruits coming ripe which can be used to put an interesting twist on our winter and holiday tables.

Chilled Papaya Soup

Great as a meal starter or as dessert. Papaya are easy to grow here in southwest Florida, and they are tasty both green (shredded in an Asian style salad) and ripe out of hand with a squeeze of lemon, in smoothies, cakes, etc.

Sally has half a dozen trees in the yard that are four years old, 12-20 ft tall, and have been producing fruit for at least two years. They were planted from seeds saved from a store-bought papaya which was particularly tasty. There are numerous varieties of papaya. Sally's have fruit 7-12" long, green-turning-yellow-orange when ripe, and 2-6 pound in weight. The one pictured weighed 3 lbs 3 ounces.

1 medium Papaya (about 3 pounds), peeled, seeded and diced, divided

3/4 cup Lime Juice (fresh squeezed, of course)

1/2  cup Brown Sugar

1-1/2 cup White Wine

1-1/2 cup Water

Puree half of the papaya with the lime juice; reserve. In a saucepan, combine the sugar, wine and water. Bring to a simmer, add the sugar and diced papaya. Add the pureed fruit, stir, and taste. Add more lime juice or sugar, to taste. Strike a balance between tart and sweet.  Chill and serve.

If you find that the papaya isn't quite ripe when you cut into it, you can simmer the mixture for 15 or 20 minutes longer to soften the fruit, before chilling. This will also evaporate all but the tiniest hint of alcohol. A dollop of whipped cream does not go amiss as a garnish.

Lemon Dessert Scones

Another great winter fruit here in Florida are lemons, especially the milder, sweeter Meyer variety which is perfect for making Preserved Lemons, Lemon Marmalade, Lemon Curd, Lemon Pie, and of course freeze-your-own Lemon Juice. Here's another fabulous use for Meyer Lemons. This recipe is a modified Welsh Scone recipe I've used for years, which requires no baking -- but an electric skillet helps.

2 cups AP flour

1/2 cup white Sugar

1 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp fresh ground Nutmeg

1/2 tsp Black Cardamon seed, ground

1/2 cup Butter, cut up

1/2 cup dried Blueberries

1 large Egg, beaten

1/3 cup Whole Milk

Zest of 1 Lemon, minced

Start heating an electric skillet to 325F.

In a large bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and spices. Cut the butter in with a pastry cutter or fingers until it makes fine granules. Add the blueberries and lemon zest, and stir to distribute.

In a cup, beat the egg and milk together. Pour the liquid into the flour and use a fork to stir until you get a soft dough. Turn out on a floured surface and give it about a dozen kneads. Cut the dough in thirds, and roll or pat each third into a 6" disk about 1" thick. Cut each disk into quarters.

Place the quarters into the dry, hot skillet, and cook, uncovered for 5-8 minutes per side, turning once, until medium brown. Serve immediately, or cool on a rack loosely covered.

While the scones are cooling, take time to make a batch of my 10 Minute Microwave Lemon Curd (August 24th 2015). Serve the warm scones with a dollop of still warm curd on top for a Lemony-Snicket dessert!

No-Bake Orange Cream Pie

Another classic tropical winter fruit here in Florida is the orange. This refrigerator pie combines two great tropical flavors -- orange and chocolate!

1/4 cup fresh squeezed Orange Juice

1 can Sweetened Condensed Milk

8 oz softened or whipped Cream Cheese

2 Oranges, zested, one of them peeled and sectioned

Oreo Cookie tm pre-made chocolate crumb crust

You can used bottled OJ, or squeeze the juice from one of the oranges listed after zesting them.  Reserve the segments of the second orange.  Stir to combine the OJ, milk, cream cheese and orange zest.  Pour into the crust and chill overnight.  After an hour or so of chilling, garnish the top of the pie with the orange segments.

Great Holiday Bake Off Fiasco!

Take the best cooking show on the planet (Great British Bake Off) and sell the concept to a mercenary American TV Network. Combine a lesser known TV/Movie couple as pretty but un-funny hosts with an arrogant American James Beard winner pastry chef, and add the grace, charm and knowledge of Britain's Mary Berry. Throw in 6 American so-called bakers chosen more for their 'backstories' than their baking skills, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Don't bother watching the remaining 3 episodes -- the first one was bad enough. Bakers who had serious trouble making two batches their own Christmas cookie recipes. Bakers who, although given weeks, if not months of notice that the Show Stopper was going to be a gingerbread construction, seemed as if they had never made and glued anything together, and had little concept of Show Stopper Quality decoration. It wasn't pretty. It was frankly pathetic. Please don't let it happen again!!

Red Velvet Cookies

They had another bake sale at Sally's office on Friday, so I made some more of my diabetic-friendly Oatmeal-Craisin Rocks with Splenda tm and Olivio tm. Since it's December I also made a batch of something more festive (and more sugary) -- Cool Whip tm Cookies using Red Velvet cake mix. Fast and simple, and Oh so tasty!  My kinda Christmas cookies.

1 Box Cake Mix (I used red Velvet, but the sky's the limit)

8 oz tub  Cool Whip tm or generic equivalent, chilled in the freezer for an hour.

2 eggs, beaten

1 cup Confectioners' Sugar for coating

Put the cake mix in a bowl, add the beaten eggs, and stir to combine. Gradually fold in the Cool Whip until the color of the batter is homogenous. Caution, this batter is really sticky!

Drop balls of batter (I used my disher) into a shallow bowl of confectioners' sugar and roll to coat each ball.   Place on parchment-covered baking sheets with room to spread, and bake at 350F for 15-18 minutes. Et violà!

The cookies are fragile when fresh from the oven. Slide them off the baking sheet using the parchment paper and allow to cool thoroughly before carefully lifting them from the paper with a spatula. Makes about two dozen cookies.

 

Here's the first dozen.

Lesson Learned: Chill the batter for 15 or 20 minutes before dishing/rolling/traying. Look at the picture below. 

 

The cookie on the left was dished/rolled and baked after the mixture sat at room temperature for at least 20 minutes. The cookie on the right was from the second batch.  While the first batch baked, I put the remaining batter in the fridge where it stiffened up quite a bit. The result -- a taller, less spread-out, nicer looking cookie.

Interesting Fruit Course

At the marina where I live aboard my sailboat ManCave,  we have a vessel called Rumours On The Water, a really nicetwo-storey styling salon/spa on a 50+ foot catamaran hull. The owner, Marsha, and her stylists host a customer-appreciation party the first week of December each year. Great food, great live music, a good time is had by all. This year, Marsha's masseuse, a lady named Savannah, made an interesting fruit-course/appetizer I thought I'd share.

 

This photo, taken without flash,  is seriously "adjusted" 

for the very low-light conditions of the outdoor, night time party.

Photo by John Peterson

Take a Waffle ice cream cone, dip it in chocolate ganache, sprinkl it with ground graham cracker (I think), then fill with assorted whole fruit -- blueberries, red and black raspberries, etc. There might even have had some chocolate drizzled on top the fruit. This is a great presentation to keep in mind for your next informal party!!