Weekly Menu Holiday Hangover Edition

Oh man, are we stuffed with chex mix, cookies, Grandpa's Dunk (this would be great while watching all those New Year's football games),

Swedish meatballs, ham, potatoes, Swedish potato sausage, ham, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie and Swedish cream. To top it off, one of Matt's co-workers sent us six pints of Graeter's small batch ice cream from Ohio.

This ice cream is made 2 gallons at a time! We've tried the blueberry pie so far & it was amazing. I can't even think about starting in on all the wonderful chocolate bars I got in my stocking.

Menu Planning Monday...
This week we are looking towards lighter meals for sure!

Chorizo, Potato & Greens Soup

Pizzeria Lola - A night out with the extended family in Lady Za Za's kitchen

Beans & Rice - or something meatless

Chinese out - We have babysitting duty & are thinking going out would be fun

We'll spend NYE with the cousins & I think the menu is leaning towards tacos.

Think we'll roast a chicken for New Year's Day.

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted. © 2007-2010 Kathy Lewinski

Happy Holidays!

Christmas Morning on Lake Superior in Duluth, MN

Matt & I are off for a few days of holiday cheers & good food with our family up North. We'll be back with lots more recipes & food talk next week. Wish you & your families all the best for the holiday season!

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted. © 2007-2010 Kathy Lewinski

Weekly Menu 12/20 - 12/25

We have been so busy running around getting things ready for the holidays & doing last minute shopping. We ended up picking up a little something for ourselves too.

I've never in my life owned a brand new car! We loved our old Honda Accord but this winter was really pushing us towards something a little bigger with all-wheel drive. Good timing as we are supposed to get another 8 inches of snow today!

I also had to share this from our Lego advent calendar with you...

Yes, that is Santa in a thong taking a shower! Creepy, huh? Gotta wonder about those Lego designers in Denmark.

On to Menu Planning Monday...

We are doing lots of running from house to house this week for the holidays so a lot of the dinners we aren't cooking.

Beef Stew - My mom & dad are driving all day to get here in the snow so I thought a good comforting stew would be great

Olive & Cream Cheese Stuffed Burgers - A dish I never got to last week.

We'll be eating out somewhere in Duluth, I know there is a smokehouse on the list.

Dinner at my brothers

Christmas Eve at my sister's - I'm betting we'll have Swedish meatballs

Christmas at my cousins - The menu includes ham, Swedish potato sausage, beans & potato gratin

Ok, off yo get the house clean!

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted. © 2007-2010 Kathy Lewinski

Going Whole Hog and a Winner

It's that time of year where we're all tempted to over-indulge a little but Matt & I went from a little to whole hog indulgence this week.

Yes, that is a whole pig! Tuesday night we joined chefs Scott Pampuch of Corner Table & Mike Phillips of Green Ox Meats for a Whole Hog Dinner at The Local in Minneapolis. These are two men who know their away around a pig (heck, they actually butchered one in a local Williams Sonoma a few weekend ago) so, we knew we were in for something good.

It was a cold, blustery night so we were happy to be ushered into a cozy private room & served a Rush River Unforgiven Amber Ale while pondering over the menu.

The first course was one we used to go to Mike's former restaurant, Craftsman, specifically to have, a lovely charcuterie platter. It was all wonderful but we especially enjoyed the terrine, wild mushroom salami & rillettes (must make terrine & rillettes at home).

The second course was a Charcroute Garni. Once again everything was great but the pork pie made with all head meat covered in a lard crust was sublime. There is talk of adding it to the menu at The Local & its sister restaurants & we vote a very loud yes.

Next, we were presented with the entrée (even though we were stuffed already), a whole pig panchetta. The pig had been cooked for 7 hours in a large pizza oven. It was certainly tasty but we loved the fist two course so much it had a hard time living up to them.

Finally, dessert, even if had porky goodness in it. A parsnip cake was topped with a crispy bacon toffee & served with a walnut beet ice cream. Even the cream creme anglaise had been infused with pork flavor buy have ham bones seeped in it.

To top it off each course was paired with a Rush River beer from Wisconsin. The beers work beautifully with the pork. I'm a big fan of their Lost Arrow Porter & it was perfect with the charcuterie. Their Winter Warmer, which is just in stores now, was really interesting with flavors of orange, cardamon & other spices. I asked if I was tasting it right & was surprised to hear that even though it has those flavors no spices or flavorings have been added to it at all. With dessert we were treat to the Nevermore Chocolate Oatmeal Stout which had just been bottled for the first time that morning. It is an amazing beer with such an outstanding chocolate/coffee flavor, it'll be perfect in front of the fire & should be in stores in the next week. We headed back out into the cold feeling a lot warmer & a lot fuller!

Finally, we have the winner in our Figgy Giveaway - Ranee of Arabian Knits. Congrats Ranee & thanks to everyone who entered.

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted. © 2007-2010 Kathy Lewinski

Chocolate Peppermint Patties: International Blogger Holiday Cookie Recipe Exchange

I'm so far behind with holiday baking this year. The last two years I did a batch of cookies every week for the eight weeks leading to Christmas. This year I haven't done any except for these & these only got done because I'm participating in the Blogger Holiday Cookie Recipe Exchange.
Lori of Fake Food Free & Adrienne of Gastroanthropology matched up food blogger from around the world to share favorite cookie recipes. I was matched with Adrienne & she shared her recipe for these Chocolate Peppermint Patties. I stuck pretty close to her original recipe except I sprinkled my cookies with cayenne pepper instead of powdered sugar for just a kiss of heat.

Chocolate Peppermint Patties
Recipe from Gastroanthropology with my notes added in red.

16 oz semisweet or dark chocolate for melting (Adrienne uses dark chocolate which I would have done too but we were snowed in & I only had semi-sweet on hand)
2 oz unsalted butter
4 eggs, room temperature
5 oz dark brown sugar
5 oz granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 Tbs peppermint extract
2 oz all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
12 oz semisweet or dark chocolate chips
crunched up candy canes or peppermint candies (I used about 10 peppermint candies)
powdered sugar for dusting (I skipped this & dusted with cayenne pepper instead)

*Please note there are two measurements of chocolate, the first will be melted and the second is chocolate chips folded in.

METHOD

Melt chocolate and butter over a double broiler. Sift flour and baking powder together and set aside. (I did this in the microwave. It took about 4 - 5 minutes with a lot of stirring every minute or so.) Meanwhile, ribbon sugar and eggs until its thick and pale. Add salt and peppermint extract. Mix in. Fold the chocolate/butter mixture into the sugar/egg mixture. Work quickly here...the moment the warm chocolate/butter mixture hits the sugar/eggs mixture it's important to get the combined as to not "cook" the eggs. Gently fold in sifted flour and baking powder. When just combined, fold in chocolate chips. The dough will be loose. (The dough is very liquidy, I thought I had done something wrong but it will firm up in the fridge.) Cover directly with plastic and refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to 24 hours, make sure nothing with strong savory smells are in the fridge.

Preheat oven to 350F/180C.

Once chilled remove from fridge and scoop out cookies onto lined cookie sheets. Using an ice cream scoop works best. (I used the large side of a melon baller & made about 1" balls of dough. Keep the dough chilled for ease of working with.) Before they go in the oven gently press in bits of crunched up peppermint candy (the candy pieces melt while baking so only big ones really show up in the finished cookies) and then dust heavily with powdered sugar to get a crackly look for the cookies (I skipped the powdered sugar & sprinkled the cookies with a little cayenne instead for a touch of heat). I tend to use a small scoop to get 2-3 bite cookies. These take about 7-8 minutes. For a larger cookie, bake a bit longer. (I had a hard time finding the correct baking time for these. Eight minutes was too short for me & I found I needed somewhere between 10 & 14. They also needed to cool for about 10 minutes on the baking sheet before moving to a cooling rack or they really broke apart).

Makes 7 dozen cookies.


More of my notes: Using semi-sweet chocolate made for a very sweet cookie & I would highly suggest using dark chocolate at least for the dough. The cayenne was a nice twist on these cookies as it gives just the slightest hint of heat. No one will guess there is chile pepper in them but the kick is great against the sweetness.

Check out Lori & Adrienne's blogs for a full recap of all the cookies.

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted. © 2007-2010 Kathy Lewinski