Homemade Bailey's - Making Spirits Bright!

A few weeks ago, I was invited to my friend Jess' aunt's house for a Bailey's-making party.  I didn't even know you could do such a thing!  Since I've been known to enjoy a glass (or two) of Bailey's over ice around the holidays, I agreed.  It is super easy and we had a great time eating, and making batch after batch of the holiday treat.  Below is the recipe for 1 batch, which fills up about a wine bottle and a half.  I'm also including the Crusty Sausage-filled Bread recipe in here from my uncle Duane, since that's what I brought to the party, and it is delicious and Christmas-y.  Enjoy!

Homemade Bailey's Irish Cream
1 3/4 cups of booze (we used bourbon, but you could also use whiskey if you want a little more of a bite)
1 cup heavy cream
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 Tbsp chocolate syrup
1 tsp instant coffee (you can use more if you want a more pronounced coffee flavor)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
3 pasteurized eggs (if you don't use pasteurized eggs, the Bailey's will not last more than 1-2 days)

Put all ingredients into a blender, and blend for 30-60 seconds until everything is incorporated. Pour the Bailey's into an old wine or liquor bottle.  The Bailey's will last 2-3 months in the refrigerator.  We ended up making WAY too much and I ended up with 4 bottles.  So if anyone wants to stop in for some Bailey's at any point between now and the end of February, please feel free!  :-)

Crusty Sausage-Filled Bread (from NPR's The Splendid Table, courtesy of my Uncle Duane)
1 1/2 pounds ground pork sausage
3 eggs, lightly beaten
2 tsp finely chopped fresh basil
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp ground sage
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 cups coarsley grated mozzarella
1 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano
2 packages pizza dough (I used Pillsbury, and they work wonderfully)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour, for working the dough
1 cup whole grain mustard, for garnish/dipping

Preheat the oven to 375.
Break up the sausage into small pieces and saute it in a skillet over medium0phigh heat until completely brown and cooked through.  REmove it from the pan with a sloted spoon and drain on paper towels.  When drained, place the cooled sausage in abowl with the eggs, basil, cloves, allspice, sage, salt, pepper, mozzarella, and Parmigiano.  Mix well.

Set one pound of the pizza dough on a lightly floured board.  Sprinkle the top of the dough lightly with flour and roll it out into a 10x12 inch rectangle, 1/2 inch thick.

Spread half the sausage filling over the dough, allowing a 1 1/2 inch border on all sides. Fold in the border of dough and press down.  Roll the dough into a jelly roll, begining witha short side.  Place the dough, seam-side down, on a baking sheet.  MAke the second filled bread with the remaining ingredients and place it on the same baking sheet.  BAke the breads about 40-45 minutes, until they are crusty and brown.  Cool the breads on a wire rack.

Serve the breads warm, with the mustard on the side.

Post-Thanksgiving Sick House Feast

I arrived in Prior Lake at my parents' house for Thanksgiving, only to find them both practically on their deathbeds, due to the dreaded H1N1 flu.  In spite of that, they hosted 30+ people for the big meal, without letting on that they were feeling horribly (and after cooking with facemasks, and disinfecting EVERYTHING...twice).  As usual, the meal was amazing, and went off without a hitch.  The next day left them both completely drained, so I offered to cook dinner with some of the leftovers that night.  On the menu: Bacon Cups with Sweet Potato Hash (double bacon? yes please!), Turkey Tetrazzini ("I don't know what she do with that chicken tetrazzini but Paul sure love it!" - see link below), a beautiful salad, and carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

Bacon Cups with Sweet Potato Hash (from "What Would Brian Boitano Make?" on the Food Network)

Bacon Cups:

24 1/16 inch thick slices pancetta (we had some imported proscuitto courtesy of our Italian exchange student, and my sister volunteer to slice it up for these, and it worked really well!)

Hash:

4 strips of bacon

1 large sweet potato, small diced

4 stalks celery, diced

1 small yellow onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (more if you like it spicy!)

salt & freshly ground pepper

24 tsp sour cream (for garnish)

24 italian parsley leaves (for garnish)

Make the bacon cups: Preheat oven to 400.  Place and press slices of pancetta into the cups of a sprayed, non stick mini muffin tin. Carefully place a second mini muffin tin on top of the first, so that the slices of pancetta are sandwiched between the two.  Flip the muffin tins over and place on a baking sheet, and bake for 12 minutes.  Remove from oven, and let the cups cool slightly before removing them from the tins onto paper towels.

Meanwhile, make the hash: In a large skillet over medium heat, brown the bacon.  Remove the bacon from the skillet and place on a plate lined with paper towels. In the skillet with the bacon fat, add the potatoes, celery, onion, garlic, paprika, and red pepper flakes, and season with salt and pepper.  Saute over medium heat until potatoes are tender, about 12 minutes. Crumble in cooked bacon, and combine. 

Assembly: Fill each bacon cup with a tablespoon of the hash, and garnish with a dollop of sour cream and a parsley leaf.

Turkey Tetrazzini (Recipe is Giada DeLaurentis' for Chicken Tetrazzini, but this turned out amazingly with leftover Thanksgiving turkey)

The inspiration for this dish came after I saw an episode of the soup that featured this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RZxbKvD1YQ

Naturally, I became intruiged with what "chicken tetrazzini" actually is, since apparently it was used to seduce Alycia's man.  Most people use pasta, a can of cream of mushroom soup, chicken, and frozen peas- not so appetizing, but when I found a Giada recipe for it, I knew it had to be good.  I've made it several times, and it only gets rave reviews!

9 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons olive oil

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts

2 1/4 teaspoons salt

1 1/4 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

1 pound white mushrooms, sliced

1 large onion, finely chopped

5 cloves garlic, minced

1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme leaves

1/2 cup dry white wine

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

4 cups whole milk, room temperature

1 cup heavy whipping cream, room temperature

1 cup chicken broth

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

12 ounces linguine

3/4 cup frozen peas

1/4 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves

1 cup grated Parmesan

1/4 cup dried Italian-style breadcrumbs

Preheat the oven to 450.

Spread 1 tablespoon of butter over a 13 by 9 by 2-inch baking dish. Melt 1 tablespoon each of butter and oil in a deep large nonstick frying pan over medium-high heat. Sprinkle the chicken with 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper. Add the chicken to the hot pan and cook until pale golden and just cooked through, about 4 minutes per side. Transfer the chicken to a plate to cool slightly. Coarsely shred the chicken into bite-size pieces and into a large bowl.

Meanwhile, add 1 tablespoon each of butter and oil to the same pan. Add the mushrooms and saute over medium-high heat until the liquid from the mushrooms evaporates and the mushrooms become pale golden, about 12 minutes. Add the onion, garlic, and thyme, and saute until the onion is translucent, about 8 minutes. Add the wine and simmer until it evaporates, about 2 minutes. Transfer the mushroom mixture to the bowl with the chicken.

Melt 3 more tablespoons butter in the same pan over medium-low heat. Add the flour and whisk for 2 minutes. Whisk in the milk, cream, broth, nutmeg, remaining 1 3/4 teaspoons salt, and remaining 3/4 teaspoon pepper. Increase the heat to high. Cover and bring to a boil. Simmer, uncovered, until the sauce thickens slightly, whisking often, about 10 minutes.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the linguine and cook until it is tender but still firm to the bite, stirring occasionally, about 9 minutes. Drain. Add the linguine, sauce, peas, and parsley to the chicken mixture. Toss until the sauce coats the pasta and the mixture is well blended.

Transfer the pasta mixture to the prepared baking dish. Stir the cheese and breadcrumbs in a small bowl to blend. Sprinkle the cheese mixture over the pasta. Dot with the remaining 3 tablespoons of butter. Bake, uncovered, until golden brown on top and the sauce bubbles, about 25 minutes.

 

Blueberry Sour Cream Muffins

One Sunday afternoon, I got the urge to bake, and also eat healthy before Thanksgiving.  Now these two things really do not go together, but I thought I would give it a try.  I scanned the list of recipes in the December issue of Food & Wine magazine, and saw some blueberry sour cream muffins, that I thought  had a green circle next to them, denoting a healthy recipe.  Well, once I started mixing them up, it became clear that they were not in fact healthy, but were extremely delicious.  I took down two of them right away, and then realized that I couldn't possibly eat 12 muffins by myself before they went bad (or at least I shouldn't), I decided to bring them to work.  They were gobbled up very quickly and 3 people asked for the recipe.  So here they are - enjoy!

Blueberry Sour Cream Muffins (from December issue of Food & Wine)
Makes 1 Dozen Muffins
Topping:
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 tsp cinnamon

Muffins:
1 1/2 cups plus 1 tbsp all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 large egg
3/4 cup sugar

1 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

1 rounded cup sour cream
1 tsp pur vanilla extract

3/4 tsp finely grated lemon zest

1 rounded cup frozen blueberries

1. Make the topping: Preheat oven to 375. In a medium bowl, combine the brown sugar, flour, butter and cinnamon.  Rub with your fingers to form coarse crumbs.  Refrigerate until ready to use.

2. Make the muffins: Butter a 12-cup muffin pan. In a medium bowl, whisk the 1 1/2 cups of flour with the baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a large bowl, using a hand-held mjixer, beat the egg at medium speed until frothy.  Add the sugar and melted buter and beat until pale yellow, 1 mnute. Beat in the sour cream, vanilla and lemon zest until blended.  Add the dry ingredients and beat at low speed until almjost blended.  In a bowl, toss the blueberries with the remaining 1 tbsp of flour.  Using a ruber spatula, fold the blueberries into the batter.

3. Fill the muffin cups three-fourths full of bater and prinkle with the topping.  Bake for 25 minues or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.  Remove the mufins from the pan and let cool on a rack.

Early Winter - Black Bean Soup

The Talking

So, it was a cold winter fall Saturday, and I wanted to make some soup.  I putzed around all morning, and finally got around to picking a spicy black bean soup that my co-worker had recommended, and heading to the grocery store.  By the time I got everything sauteed and into the crock pot, it was 3:00 pm.  Then I realized that the soup needed to cook for 6 hours.  I had plans with friends for dinner.  Oops.  I didn't want to leave the soup cooking and turn the beans into total mush, so I invited everyone over here instead....for pizza.  The dialogue that happened as they walked in:
Friends: "Oooh, it smells so good!"
Me: "Too bad, we're having pizza"

Oh well.  I enjoyed the soup myself for the next 7 days (it made a lot)!

The Eating

If you like your food spicier, I would definitely add more of the chipotle chilis, and maybe even some fresh jalepenos. I also served it with honey cornbread muffins, which might be one of my favorite things ever and SUPER easy (why does anyone use boxed mix when these are so much better?)

Spicy Black Bean Soup

1 tbsp olive oil
1 medium red onions, chopped
1 medium red bell pepper, chopped
1 medium green bell pepper, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
4 tsp ground cumin
1 16 oz bag dried black beans
1 tbsp canned chipotle chilis in adobo sauce, chopped
7 cups hot water
2 tbsp fresh lime juice
2 tsp coarse kosher salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper

To garnish:
Sour cream
Cilantro
Lime wedges

Heat olive oil in large nonstick skillet. Add pepers and onions and saute until beginning to brown, about 8 minutes.

Add garlic & cumin and saute 1 minute more.  Transfer mixture to slow cooker or crock pot.  Add beans & chilis, and then the 7 cups of hot water.  Cover and cook on high for 6 hours until beans are very tender.  Puree with an immersion blender until desired consistency.  Stir in lime juice, salt and pepper. To serve, ladle into bowls, and garnish with cilantro, sour cream and lime wedges.


Honey Cornbread Muffins (adapted from the Neelys on Food Network)

1 cup yellow cornmeal

1 cup all purpose flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp salt

1 cup whole milk (I've used 1 or 2% and it works just fine)

2 large eggs

1/2 stick butter, melted

1/4 cup honey

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  In a large bowl mix together the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, sugar and salt.  In another bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, butter and honey.  Add the wet to the dry ingredients and stir until just mixed.

Line a muffin tin with paper liners and evenly divide the cornbread mixture among the 12 cups.  Bake for 15 minutes until golden.

Enjoy!

Kick it off - Seared Scallops & Gorgonzola Israeli Cous Cous

I'm kicking off this blog with a meal I made with my sister Bria (shout out to her much more well-established and inspirational food blog http://thesepeasarehollow.blogspot.com/) more than a month ago on Labor Day weekend.

The Talking:It had been a while since Bria & I had seen each other so we caught up with all the usual stuff, and made ourselves some lovely honeydew daquiris.  Once the food was ready and we were eating, the conversation quickly moved to talking about our food and how good it was. Eventually, on our second bottle of wine, we made this shocking discovery:  The bottle of Rioja we were drinking tasted like bacon!  Now, I had already consumed 2 other bottles of the same wine, and no bacon flavor was detected.  This was a revelation, because our family loves bacon, I mean really  loves bacon.  Almost every dish in our Thanksgiving meal includes some sort of bacon.  It was crazy, but it could have just been the alcohol getting to us.  Anyway, now on to the good stuff...

The Eating:

Bria was in town for the long weekend, and we decided what's more fun than sisters cooking together? We decided on scallops for the main ingredient, and made up the rest from there. We discussed, and based on an appetizer I'd had at 112 Eatery, decided that scallops drizzled with the truffle oil I had recently bought at the farmer's market would be great. I'm not going to lie: truffles are one of my top 3 favorite foods in the whole world (the others being the aforementioned bacon, and cheese). If I go out to eat, and there is something with truffles or truffle oil on the menu, odds are I'm ordering it!

Adding the scallops to a bed of fresh sweet corn/red pepper/red onion salad, we were well on our way. We found a great side dish in an old Marshall Field's cookbook, gorgonzola couscous. Looking back, we definitely agreed that the two components of our meal didn't exactly go together, but they turned out oh so good! Off to Whole Foods we went, and what resulted is below.  Enjoy!

Seared Scallops with Truffle Oil and Corn Salad

(this is approximate, since we didn't use a recipe)

8 medium/large sea scallops

2 tbsp butter

1/2 tbsp olive oil

salt & pepper

truffle oil for drizzling

Corn salad:
1 tbsp butter

1/2 ears of fresh sweet corn, shucked and corn removed from cob

1/2 red bell pepper, diced

1/2 red onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

fresh thyme

fresh parsley

salt & pepper to taste

Heat a large skillet (to get the best carmelization don't use non-stick). Add the butter and oil and heat until the butter is melted. Dry off the scallops with a paper towel. This helps get a good sear as well. Place the scallops in the pan, and let cook 2 minutes per side. Don't move the scallops once you've set them down.

 

 

For the corn salad, melt another tablespoon of butter in a skillet, and combine garlic, peppers, and onions.  Cook until just softened.  Add the corn, thyme, and salt and pepper.  Cook just a few minutes, remove from heat and toss with the parsley. Top the salad with the scallops and drizzle with truffle oil. Then say "mmmm".

 

 

 

Gorgonzola Couscous

(adapted from Todd English's recipe in the Marshall Field's cookbook)

2 tbsp unsalted butter

1 small leek, trimmed, washed and diced

2 cups chicken broth

2 cups Israeli couscous, toasted (I found israeli couscous in the bulk section of Whole Foods - it is kind of hard to find other places)

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

4 oz crumbled Gorgonzola cheese

salt and pepper

 

To toast the couscous, add it to a dry pan and cook for 4-5 minutes until aromatic and golden brown. 

 

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the leek and cook until soft, about 3-4 minutes.  Add the broth and bring to a boil. Stir in the couscous and cook at a rolling boil for 1 minute, then cover and remove from heat. Allow to rest for about 20 minutes until all of the liquid is absorbed. Place the pan over low heat and stir in the cream and cheese.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Final product is gooey and creamy and delicious.  This was my first time cooking with israeli couscous, and it was a good base recipe, I can see adding in all sorts of things to make this different and even better.