Christmas Cookies

I tried playing Martha Stewart this year and created the MS cookie box (I purchased the boxes at the craft store). I love the way you can make 4 separate sections and decided it would be really fun to fill each with a different kind of cookie. That way, people with allergies, preferences, health conditions, etc. would all be able to hopefully find a cookie they can enjoy. All recipes are already on this site. Below us here you will find (clockwise from upper left corner): oatmeal butterscotch cookies, vanilla and nutmeg merigues, blackberry amaretto thumbprints, and snowballs.


I'm really (REALLY) not a baker. Baking to me is like paint-by-number whereas cooking is like being able to draw whatever you want. Still, at Christmas, cookies seem the inexpensive and appropriate choice. Either way, these cookie recipes are already up on this site and each of them is quite quite simple. I couldn't have it any other way.

I am still amazed that people really read my posts. It makes me feel very blessed, and it also makes me feel like I might actually have something to contribute that isn't already out there. So thank you. And happy holidays to all!

Coulis, Compote or Chutney?

I'm trying to get a better understanding of all the little french words that usually just mean fruit and sugar. Here's a primer:


Coulis: French for "strained liquid" - that's just what it is! A coulis can be sweet or savory. The base is either a fruit or a (cooked) vegetable. Puree, season (like with lemon or salt) and then strain to remove seeds and such. A very common one is raspberry coulis - often served with something chocolatey. Behold:





Compote: Cooked fruit dessert with rich syrup. Can be warm or chilled. Here's one with figs and cinnamon:






Chutney: This one seems a lot like a compote to me. It's fruit & sugar that are combined, sometimes with vinegar, and simmered slowly. Usually sweet & sour, but can be spiced. The most common is probably Mango:





Gastrique: Thick, syrupy reduction (we've heard this before) of vinegar or wine, sugar and usually fruit. Often served over meat or seafood to add a fruit flavor to the dish. It's thinner (like the coulis):



Aioli: When seasonings or flavors are mixed with mayonaise. Lookie:



Remoulade: Similar to the aioli, it's mayo-based. But a remoulade is more similar to tartar sauce and includes mixed herbs, veggies, etc.



Granita: semi-frozen dessert of sugar, water and some kind of fresh fruit or vegetable juice. Originally from Sicily, it's a little more coarse and crystalline than a sorbet, maybe more like italian ice. For this one you don't cook anything. Just stir juice with sugar and maybe lemon or a pinch of salt, and then pop it in the freezer, scraping it around with a fork every couple of hours to break it up. Now that's simple! Here's a watermelon granita:



I'm sure there are more. I'll add them as I think of them!

Breaking Down a Tenderloin

We were watching Alton Brown not too long ago and he demonstrated how to get more for your money by buying an entire tenderloin, and then butchering and cutting the individual roast & steaks yourself. We love steak in our house. So, when we went to Costco today, we picked one up and I took on the project. Friends, this is a tenderloin (Filet Mignon, Chateaubriand, Tournedos, Medallions, or Filet de Boeuf...I'm not making these names up):







It doesn't look like much when you first open it up, but there's gold in there. You just have to know how to find it. And Alton does. I pulled up this video on YouTube and went to work:



Good Eats: Tender Is The Loin 1, first half

It takes him a minute to get to the point, but it's great because he shows you where the loin is located on the cow, what it does and why it's so expensive (spoiler: it's the most tender because it comes from the very center of the cow where no muscles are developed because that part is never used. You probably knew this already). So. The first steps are to rinse it off, remove excess fat from the outside and removing the silver skin (read: gnarly and useless connective tissue):

OK, this is not as easy as Alton makes it look. I managed to cut myself with my paring knife, but no worries, it's not nearly as bad as last month when I nearly removed the entire tip of my finger. Therefore I continued undeterred. As my blood mixed with the blood of my cow friend, I considered the circle of life, the food chain, and came a little closer to understanding nature, butchery and pain.

Once you're done trimming, you're ready to make all kinds of things. You remove the massive muscle at the side and there you have a complete roast.



It's truly amazing how little we learn about meat when we just pick it up in the grocery store, enshrined in plastic wrap on that styrofoam plate. I now have a stack of steaks (cut 1.5 inches thick), a roast, AND some chain thing that I have NO IDEA what to do with.


Sidenote: My new phone supposedly has a badass camera but we can't get it to work, so if you want a video of my husband trying to wrestle a tenderloin, I have it. In the meantime, I'll be posting pics that look just like what we were doing, they're just not mine. Sorry. I'm disappointed too.

Tonight I think we will just chill out and make steaks. I have plans for the roast as well. But the chain meat...I've never even heard of chain meat, have you? Look at this monster:



Suggestions? Anyone? For now, I'm chucking it into the freezer as a project for another day.