Irish Cream Tiramisu

My sister was hosting Christmas this year and she asked me to bring a dessert. I decided on bringing the tiramisu. I'm not really sure why I chose it, I guess maybe because I knew there was no way Husband and I would be able to eat this ourselves. It's pretty simple to prepare especially if you get the alcohol content correct...I didn't. I made this without paying close attention to what I was doing and I ended up pouring the entire cup of Bailey's in with the espresso that I dipped the savoiardi in...oops! but a delicious oops. It may have even been a subconscious effort to add more booze. Really you're supposed to reserve 75ml for mixing in with the mascarpone but I just added an extra 75ml. I'm not sure how much this effected the overall taste because my extra booze was in the coffee bath but this tiramisu was booze hound tiramisu - which means it was pretty yummy. It turned out fantastic I'd say, with the way it set and all so I think this is a great recipe for a tiramisu. You can of course control the level of booze flavour you want by adding more or less to the coffee bath and you could even replace the bailey's in the mascarpone with espresso coffee if you want no booze at all - but don't be a jerk and remove all the fun from the party.

In the end I'd say this dessert turned out much like my Christmas, very enjoyable and a little bit drunk.

Cocktail Sausages

Well, at this time of the year we are all looking for appetizers to take to parties. Cocktail Sausages are a classic dish but I find they are being replaced by the meatball. To me this is a little sad. I mean who doesn't prefer a little wienie over a little ball.

I took these to a Christmas exchange and they were a hit. I had lots of compliments on the dish and even a request for the recipe. I didn't taste any myself because of the whole meat thing but Husband ate about 1/3 of them all by himself. Next time you're thinking party meatballs try the party sausage instead!

Seasonal Fruit Salad

Remember that episode of the Simpsons where Bart starts singing 'you don't win friends with salad'? Well this recipe proves that wrong. Today was my office Christmas Pot Luck. I decided that nothing says work party like a boozey fruit salad. I started the prep on Tuesday night (2 days prior). What you do is you soak the sections of clementines in the booze overnight. But for me it was 2 nights. That made my clementines super-duper boozey. Now the booze that you're to soak these in is called Tuaca - that's not available in Ontario. Nigella seemed to know that this wasn't available all over the place because she suggests that if you can't get your hands on some Tuaca then you can use a mix of Brandy and Cointreau. Well, that wasn't working for me either as I'm too cheap to go buy more booze right now when, as I've mentioned before, we have crazy amounts of booze already. So I did some reading up on Tuaca. Seems this is a liqueur that originates from Tuscany and has vanilla and orange flavours. I have a large bottle of Grand Marnier in my stores and I also happened to have a vanilla bean on hand. So what I did was soak the clementines in Grand Marnier and a vanilla bean. Then this morning before work I took the Grand Marnier the citrus has been soaking in and added sugar (oranges removed) and brought to a boil. Here I will interject with a trick I picked up for all the North Americans driven crazy by not having caster sugar available to them. Just put some regular sugar in a food processor to make it a little more fine. - you're welcome.

So you boil your sugar and booze and then pour it back over the oranges and toss in pomegranate seeds. done.

At work this got rave reviews. The clementines were sooooo boozey. It was like doing a shot. The greatest was getting a new person to try some "fruit salad" and then watching their face as they bit into a mouth full of booze. It was hilarious. People's reactions were either "wooooohoooo!" or, a grimace followed by "That's gooooood!". It was always one or the other. Another person came over to me and said " Man, now this is what I'm talkin' about!!! This is a Christmas Party dish!"

This would also make a fantastic dessert salad. And I am highly recommending it.

Croque Monsieur Bake

This recipe is like a cross between a ham sandwich, french toast and lasagna. And it works! Husband was really excited about trying this recipe and I was indifferent. But we both ended up enjoying it. I'm not so crazy about the ham sandwich...but I do like me some french toast. This is a meal that you prepare ahead of time and then pop it in the oven once your ready to enjoy.

Basically you make 3 ham sandwiches and the pour beaten eggs and milk over them. Let that soak/marinate overnight. Then next morning grate some cheese, shake some worshtershire (sp?) and pop it in the oven for 25 minutes. It's not an earth shattering invention but it's a nice change from the ordinary. I'm giving this my vote of confidence, I think it's worth a try.

Holiday Hotcake with Eggnog Cream

My favourite Christmas special is Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. It's pure genius. Tonight was the first time I saw it this holiday season and I wanted to make it a really, really Christmasy experience. So I made Holiday Hotcake to eat while I watched this tonight.

I have to tell you that this maybe wasn't the best representation of this recipe. It was a last minute decision and so I just went with what I had in my cupboards. The main issue that I had was that of finding a jar of "mixed spice". Now I made an assumption that this was the English term for all spice but I didn't find any of that in my cupboard. What I did find though was "Jamaican Mixed Spice" this was a souvenir I picked up while on holiday in Montego Bay a while ago. I decided to go with it. I mean the jar said mixed spice so what if it said the word Jamaican in front of it right? I mean the English settled into Jamaica too. They could be the same thing for all I know. This is what I told myself but to be honest I wasn't really even buying my own bullshit. I decided I didn't care though. I'd roll the dice I thought...the Jamaican part of the mixed spice would make everything irie I decided.

So what you do when you make this is mix everything in a bowl except for 200g of sugar,1 tsp each of ginger and the mixed spice and the boiling water. Get it all combined and pour into a greased cake tin. Then you mix together your sugar and spices and put over top the cake batter. dollop with butter and then pour boiling water over everything in the cake pan. I screwed that part up. You see what I did was speed through the reading and pour the boiling water in with the sugar and spices. Then I realized that was wrong. At this point I considered dumping my bowl of boiling spicy sugar but then I thought no effing way. That's way too much ingredients to waste. I'm gonna roll the dice again and just dollop butter on the cake mix and pour this shit over the batter. So that's what I did. And I think it turned out pretty okay. It looked cakey coming out of the oven. It looked like a cake in soup coming out and I was tempted to put in back in the oven, but Nigella says let it rest for 10 minutes so I decided to so see how it looked after a short rest. That turned out to be a good decision because when I went back 10 minutes later everything looked tip top.

Making the Eggnog Cream was a little confusing for me. It's just whip cream with advocaat but it wouldn't whip for me. It did eventually but it took a while and I also realized it would never truly whip - it just becomes a very thick cream. Thick but still soft, Nigella describes it as.

So I scooped out some cake, spooned the sugary sauce at the bottom of the cake pan over top and then topped it all off with the eggnog cream. It was festive and delightful. I'm sure it would be even better if I'd used real mixed spice and not Jamaican mixed spice but I was happy enough with the result. Happy enough for 2 helpings as a matter of fact. Everything did turn out irie after all.

Snowball

Well, I've found you the perfect drink to serve this Christmas. Or rather Nigella has found it for all of us. The Snowball is AMAZING!!!! How did this drink fall off people's radars???? This drink has retro chic appeal - it's the ultimate egg nog-ish drink. To make this drink you put one part advocaat, 3 parts lemonade and then a dash of lime juice. Advocaat - for those who don't know is an egg based liqueur. When I poured it out into a shot glass I was not impressed. It looked thick and gross. But I am so glad I didn't let that deter me from tasting this drink because as soon as this drink hit the back of my throat, music came on in my mind and it was 'Cheek to Cheek'...♫♪Heaven, I'm in Heaven♪♫ you know the one. So go make yourself a snowball to put you in the Christmas mood - or even just the winter mood - this is the best drink for Christmas gatherings for sure. If you serve this at your party everyone will be blown away because it's not the norm for these days but we can start a movement to bring it back! I'm mad about retro these days and this drink has it all for me - retro flare, amazing taste and it's a Christmas classic!
Here's a little video to get you in the right mind frame.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yyhOtPAXK4&feature=related

High-Speed Hamburger with Fast Fries

Okay, this is a good burger recipe no doubt about it. But the smell of hamburger is clinging on me like a bad case of B.O. . I can't shake it. I made this burger for Husband pretty much as soon as I got home from work tonight and 3 hours later I still smell like a burger. Now some of you may say "Sweet! Nuthin' smells as great as a nice burg." But you're wrong. I smell like a pile of greasy nast. And do you know where I spent my night? In yoga class. That's right, I've spent the past hour doing the downward dog and trying not to puke all over my yoga mat because I've a cloud of burger grease around me. Here's how bad it was - when I was doing deep bends I was actually glad to smell my feet because they didn't smell like grease!

All night I've felt like Pig Pen from Peanuts with a constant cloud of stink around me. But apart from that this recipe is aces. I mean sure maybe it's my fault that I waited to make this until a day that it's -14 outside so I didn't bbq it...but I'm just saying. Don't fry this bad boy inside - this is a bbq meal for sure. Makes a tasty burg - Husband gave it an 8 out of 10.

Now the other half of the meal -the Fast Fries. I'm going to advise against Nigella's method of bashing your potatoes in a freezer bag and suggest that you take the 45 seconds to slice your potato into strips. Because when I did the bashing on my 3rd whack the freezer bag burst open and potato went shooting in every direction in my kitchen and all over the floor. These I just picked up and rinsed off before frying and feeding to Husband. Yeah I know it's not the cleanest dinner but they were washed...and you won't feel so bad for Husband when I tell you that 3 years ago Husband made me a great BBQ dinner. Then 2 hours after I had eaten he tells me the story of how he found a dead unidentifiable animal in our bbq, removed the animal and then made me my dinner WITHOUT cleaning the bbq first!!!!! How disgusting is that???? So you see folks a little washed off floor dirt is nothing at all. At least I had the decency to wash the dirt off.

All traumatizing bbqs aside, I'm sure this recipe will make for some great memories in the back yard. But I repeat do not fry inside...unless of course you want to smell like burger grease.

Frittata Party

This party was for one because Husband wasn't home from work to join in. So me and Lloyd put our party hats on and fried some omelettes. (Lloyd's my cat btw) Obviously this is really easy to make - they're just omelettes. If you haven't made a cheese omelette by now you should be shot. Making it with emmental is a nice change. Give it a try. The green omelette was really nice too. It tastes green so you feel healthy eating it. The ham omlette is a sin. And the chili omelette set my mouth a flame. If you can't take heat don't even think of making this. If you don't mind some heat then I'd use maybe half a chili instead of a whole one. The use of ginger and coriander is really nice though.

This recipe isn't a revelation but it made for a decent meal.

Chicken Liver (or Tofu!) Salad

Have you ever watched a movie that you knew was going to be bad but it was on TV or your friend wanted to watch it so you watched it anyway but then ended up loving the movie - that is this recipe for me. I was fully expecting not to like this but I ended up loving it.

My sister was visiting this weekend and she was wondering what recipes I had left when she saw this one she said "Whose going to eat the chicken liver for you?" I said "No one, I'm just gonna use chicken for Husband. " To which she scoffed. So then I thought screw it - I'm gonna use tofu, the ultimate replacement for any meat. In my Metro I came across a smoked tofu that I thought looked full of potential so that's what I picked.

Back at the ranch, I came home from dinner tonight and whipped this together. I fried the tofu in oil like I woulda done the liver (plegh) and it made it all crispy and nice. Then you add the vinegar, maple sugar and deglaze. Then you put it over the arugula and voila. A lovely warm salad that is yummy, yummy, yummy. Even if you aren't a vegetarian. I highly recommend trying this with smoked tofu as a replacement for the chicken liver. It is sooo soooo good. This recipe won me over for sure.

Scallops and Chorizo

It has been exactly one year since I made my first recipe for this blog. It feels like I've been doing this forever. I still have around 40 recipes to make so it's going to be a while yet. But crickey I've made a lot of food so far. I was hoping to be done within a year but it wasn't too long before I realized that wasn't going to happen. I have to say though that I've come a long way since that first disastrous recipe. I definitely have a greater understanding of "Nigella Talk". Perhaps it's just the difference between North American and Proper English but I've got a much better idea what Nigella means these days in regards to instructions. This Scallops and Chorizo recipe though is so straight forward that it won't matter whether you've spent the last year decoding the Brits or not. Fry sausage, remove from pan. Fry Scallops - return sausage to pan add lemon juice, let bubble, plate and garnish. Ta-dah! You've just made dinner. I bought fresh scallops as opposed to frozen and the lemon juice and parsley really compliment the natural flavour of the scallops. I'm going to pat myself on the back and say I cooked the scallops perfectly too. They were sooo good. Husband had the sausage with the scallops and when I looked over his plate was clean so I think it's safe to say he loved it. I highly recommend this to you it's a little more expensive a meal - if you're a main lander like myself - but well worth the extra pennies. Mmmmmmm yummy!

Cherry Cheesecake

I know my last few blogs have been hurried and brief. That's because I have been so busy lately. Cooking is not my only talent - I've been sewing a dress the past week or so and also preparing for a bake sale. The dress is for a Christmas party this weekend and the bake sale is the brainchild of my girlfriends at work and myself who wanted to do something to give back and have a reason to bake, all at the same time. We started 6 years ago with a wee little table or two in our work area with proceeds from the bake sale going to the Children's Hospital in Toronto. Now, 6 years later, our bake sale is the stuff of legends and there are legions of people lined up. It's about 7x six foot tables jam packed full of home baked goods. The bake sale has taken on a life of it's own. It is at this point it's own entity. The truly amazing thing is that over the past 6 years we have managed to donate over $12,000 to the Hospital. Can you believe that??? Through the power of a cookie we are literally helping to save lives. It really blows my mind when I think about it. And it also goes to show you that you can make a difference just by doing the smallest of things.

Anyhow, I made this cheesecake for our bake sale and I had numerous reports back that it was amazing, so I'm quite pleased about that. It really was pretty simple to make. I was making fudge and squares and this cake the night before the sale (the cookies I made ahead of time and froze them). So it was great that this recipe was so straight forward. First I made the crust which is digestive biscuits and butter. Then I made the cheese part - whip cream, vanilla, icing sugar and cream cheese. Oh, and lemon juice. I thought I'd be the hero and hand whip everything. That lasted about 2 minutes before I went downstairs and got my kitchen aid mixer. It was this moment in life I realized a) what a good investment those mixers really are, and b) how much respect I have to people who lived in the age when such items either did not exist or were unattainable by the middle class. Those were some strong women making cheesecakes. Definitely not someone I'd talk back to. Actually maybe that's what's wrong with the stories of off these sassy teenagers and children these days. You see your mom making her cheesecake with a sissy mixer and you think - God that woman can't even whip cheese. But if your mom's standing in the kitchen whipping cheese around a bowl like it ain't no thang then you think to yourself 'I'd better do what this woman says or else she could take that massive forearm muscle and back-hand me across the face which would hurt like a bugger but not leave a mark...' . I don't know, maybe I'm on to something, maybe I'm not. But either way I'm just an Aunt so I can use a stand mixer all I want.

Also either way, parent or not, mixer or not, I suggest you try this cheesecake. It's light, creamy and a no bake dream.