New Years Eats

January 6, 2013sfarrisyoung Leave a comment

We had plans on New Years Eve, but the party ended up being canceled. So we followed Lyn’s advice and decided to treat ourselves to a little Downton Abbey marathon and some of our favorite cozy/party eats.

Nothing says cozy and party at the same time like homemade pizza!

It was half cheese/half veggie Lentil loaf crumbles, sausage, roasted brussel sprouts, and tiny tomatoes.

Breadsticks, too.

And of course the big wine glass.

John asked for a homemade chocolate pie. He never fusses about eating the leftovers from all the pies I make for others people, so when asks for a pie he gets whatever he wants!

Yes, indeedy- it was nice and cozy!

On New Years Day we always start the morning with something sweet to celebrate the sweetness of a new year. We had homemade bread with honey and butter as our breakfast in bed.

For lunch I had to have my black-eyed peas. John isn’t a believe and after being together well-over a decade, I don’t force the good luck rituals on him (he’s pretty lucky already!)

I made a hash with veggie sausage, kale, garlic, cauliflower, carrots, walnuts, and onions.

(I had enough leftover that I ate it for breakfast the next day).

We also have the “Young Family Planning Summit” on New Years Day where we schedule possible places we want to travel. Afterwards we celebrate the hard work of planning fun by going out for fondue at the Melting Pot.

The cozy trend continued with a quaint corner booth across from a slightly puzzling piece of artwork.

We celebrated with the classic cheese and chocolate.

Here’s to more good eats in 2013!

It’s the end of the world, or maybe not, dinner

December 31, 2012sfarrisyoung Leave a comment

So all the “end of the world talk” made Lynley, John and I decide to have a “last meal” dinner on 12/22/12.
This also meant we had to put on our comfy, expanding eating pants, because if you’re eating your last meal then you don’t want uncomfortable clothes getting in the way.

Lyn decided her last supper would consist of lots and lots of shell fish. She’s allergic, so she could yell “to heck with it” and let her skin peel away while the earth ends around her. Needless to say we all believed there would be a tomorrow, so Lyn decided on an alternative last meal with less ramifications.

Chips, dip and Red Stripe beer.

You may not know this but Lynley had goldfish named chip and dip as a child so her passion for her final food was sincere. We did pick-up some “quality” chips just to fancy it up a bit.

John debated on his meal. He loves breadsticks with cheese dip and Lyn’s chips and dip almost pushed him in that direction. Instead he went with cheese manicotti with Cupini’s pasta sauce. I decided to make him breadsticks anyway…when the world may or may not be ending, why not have it all?

I, of course, had Paul Newman’s vodka sauce. Although it was tempting to eat it straight from the jar, which I might have done if the people speculating about the Mayan’s seemed to be right, I cooked it up with the widest pasta noodle I could find. I had to have a big glass of Pinot, fresh mozzarella, and garlic stuffed olives too.

…and a breadstick to wipe up that extra sauce! I made that sort of, but not really, last meal count.

Not only did we dine on some of our favorite foods, we decided to make a dinner and a movie of it.
Here we’re our doomsday choices….

We went with the less apocalyptic choice of Talladega Nights. I’m not sure what this says about us but it says something.

Well the world didn’t end, but our comfy, eating pants were put to good use.

Winter Solstice Mulled Wine

December 31, 2012sfarrisyoung Leave a comment

Winter Mulled Wine Recipe
1 orange or half a cup of apple cider
1 lemon
1 lime
1/2 cup of sugar
3 whole cloves
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 star of anise
1 cinnamon stick
I bottle of Chianti

Add sugar to a large sauce pan on medium heat. Cut fruit and squeeze juices into the sugar then drop all the fruit into the pan. Add the cloves, cinnamon stick, bay leaf, vanilla and the nutmeg. Pour just enough wine to cover the sugar.

Let this simmer until the sugar has almost dissolved, then bring the wine mixture to a rolling boil. Your making a syrup so don’t add the rest of the wine for 5 minutes or so, until you have a thick-ish syrup.

Add the wine and the star of anise once your syrup is ready. Turn the heat to low for 5 minutes then serve!

The Spaghetti Factory plus Paul McCartney = Love

December 31, 2012sfarrisyoung Leave a comment

We went to see Paul McCartney in St. Louis recently. The show wasn’t until later and I was all primed for an Italian feast on the famous Hill, the birthplace of fried ravioli. I got restaurant recommendations from lots of people and was prepared to have my pasta-loving socks blown off.

And then we discovered that almost every restaurant on the Hill is closed on Sundays! Ack!

While trying to find somewhere else very St. Louis to eat, John remembered eating at the Spaghetti Factory on family trips as a kid.

We both knew that the food was not going to be the same as the Hill, but we decided to indulge a craving for nostalgia instead.

John had the basic tomato sauce and pasta (which he probably ordered as a kid).

And I ordered their special Mizithra cheese pasta. The placemat told me to do it.

We laughed a lot during that dinner and enjoyed stepping back into John’s childhood. Was the perfect pre-Paul meal? As long as I was with my honey, you bet it was!

And, yes, we were wearing matching Wings t-shirts.

Roasted Pumpkin Fondue

December 30, 2012sfarrisyoung 3 Comments

My good friend Annie tipped me off that there was a roasted pumpkin fondue recipe in the holiday special issue of Gourmet magazine. I bought it right away because how could I not make a pumpkin fondue?

I did change their recipe some. They wanted you to layer the bread inside, but I just couldn’t do that. It would be more like a pudding than a fondue and although I like my puddings I’m a dunker when it comes to fondue.

To start, preheat your oven to 450.

As in almost any real pumpkin recipe, first you gotta scrape out that pumpkin.

I halved their recipe since there are just two of us. This meant I used a pie pumpkin instead of a 7 pound pumpkin.

Season the inside of the pumpkin with a 1/4 teaspoon of salt. I used garlic salt, but either will work.

In a small bowl whisk together a 3/4 cup of heavy cream, 1/2 cup veggie broth, 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and a 1/4 teaspoon of pepper.

In another bowl or big measuring cup, mix 1 1/4 cups shredded Gruyere cheese and 1 1/4 cups shredded Emmental cheese.

Add the cheese and cream mixture to the pumpkin.

You’ll notice I lined my cookie sheet with foil– you’ll want to do that. As the pumpkin bakes it collapses and the cheese oozes out some.

Put the lid back on the pumpkin and coat the out side with a little oil, maybe a tablespoon or less.

Before putting the pumpkin in the oven, you may need to lower the rack down or remove on entirely. Pie pumpkins are always taller than I think!

Let it bake for 1 to 1 and a half hours. The pumpkin will brown and the sides will get soft (see the spillage note earlier).

And then it’s done!

Our dipping spread. We added pretzel bread into the mix.

We decided to play games while eating fondue. I guess you could say we fun-dued it.

As you eat the cheese, bits of pumpkin come off the sides.

It’s not overwhelmingly pumpkin, but very subtle. It was so good, we ate every last dip of it!

Like a fondue miracle, there’s no pot to clean!

Farris-Young Christmas Dinner

December 30, 2012sfarrisyoung Leave a comment

A clean fridge is a happy fridge.

December 28, 2012sfarrisyoung Leave a comment

Last year I started a new tradition of cleaning the fridge top to bottom the day after Christmas. Nothing like starting the New Year spiffy and expiration dates up to snuff (yeah, that might be a little dorky, but it feels so good it can’t be wrong!)

Thanksgiving…

December 17, 2012sfarrisyoung Leave a comment

I run a little side pie business during Thanksgiving, so the month of November slips away very quickly. As usual, it’s almost Christmas and I just realized I never posted my Thanksgiving photos…

Here’s my veggie plate.

Our family felt the need to use every Crockpot in the house this year…I’m still not sure why? I think we had almost every decade represented.

Dinner!

Dessert- pumpkin buttermilk, pecan, and Grandma wanted Banana Cream pie, so of course she got it.

And there was the annual 2 gal talent show, which Lynley probably already blogged about. It was the best pie I experienced all Thanksgiving and my first pie in the face ever. Thanks for being such a great sis, sis.

Long Overdue Pumpkin Beer Tasting- Round Two

December 16, 2012sfarrisyoung Leave a comment

Ok, here’s the deal- round 2 of my pumpkin beer tasting did not go as planned. 75th street brewery, which has been my gold standard for pumpkin beer for years, wouldn’t fill my beer growler this year. Suddenly they aren’t selling their seasonal beers in growlers any more (you can only drink it at the bar of restaurant). Dang. The whole reason I bought their growler was to drink lots of their pumpkin beer at home. Sigh…

We carried on like all beer drinkers should and did a “Last Beer Standing” match between O’Fallen and Schlafly. Here’s how it went down.

John chose to eat dinner while we tasted.

After much drinking and sniffing, we gave Schlafly…

Autumn Color: 3 out of 4
Pumpkin Flavor: 1
Seasonal Taste: 1 (we were much harder on it the second time)
Overall Rating: 2

For O’Fallen…

Autumn Color: 1.5
Pumpkin Flavor: 2 (noted a subtle nutmeg)
Seasonal Taste: 3
Overall Rating: 3

So- O’Fallen Pumpkin was our top winner this year, but next year we are going to get serious about this! More pumpkin beers and perhaps a gathering…that could be fun!

Pumpkins, Pumpkins Everywhere: Wild Rice Stuffed Pumpkin

December 16, 2012sfarrisyoung Leave a comment

I know it’s December, but the pumpkin-ness continues at our house with a new recipe from Vegetarian Times, a Wild-Rice Stuffed Pumpkin.

I have to admit the whenever cooking dinner involves scraping out a pumpkin I groan a little. Dissecting the mighty orange orb is not an easy task, although it looks very impressive when finished.

Needless to say I marched on determined to stuff this pumpkin with yummy goodness.

Ok, first you should know that the recipe was for 12 servings. I assume they assumed you were making this for Thanksgiving or a grand dinner party (Lyn, it might work out well for your Meatless Monday Dinners).

I was making it for 3 people, so I had to do some math. It started with buying a 3-4 pound pumpkin instead of a 6-8 pound pumpkin. I rinsed him off and set him aside.

Then I cooked 2 servings of wild-rice according to directions. Then I transferred it to a medium sized mixing bowl.

Then I lightly steamed in 2 handfuls of fresh spinach by bringing a 1/2 cup of water to boil in the bottom of a skillet, then cooked the spinach for 4 minutes or until it wilted.

After draining the spinach and I let it cool in the colander while I chopped the veg: 1 1/2 cups of mushrooms, 1/4 of a large onion, 1/4 cup of celery, and 6cloves of garlic. I reduced to 3, because the mega recipe calls for 9, but in the future I will go with the 9 recommended for a flavor boost.

Add it to the skillet with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and your spices: 1teaspoon of thyme, 1 teaspoon of sage. Then I sautéed it all for 10 minutes.

While things are sautéing, it’s time to gut the pumpkin. I have to admit I was dreading this part. I hate dealing with those little strands and can’t figure out any tricks– if you have any let me know!

Come here little pumpkin, pumpkin….

Once the 10 minutes were up, I added 1/2 cup of frozen corn to the pan and a cup of red kidney beans and sautéed everything for 3 minutes more.

Next I folded in a 1/4 of a cup of pecans. The recipe says to toast them, but the flavor gets lost in the casserole, so I would skip that step if I were you.

Combine 1/4 a cup of olive oil and a teaspoon each of garlic powder, sage, and thyme in a small bowl. Brush the inside of the pumpkin with the olive oil mixture.

I filled the pumpkin with the rice mixture. Putting the lid back on. I baked it at 350 for 2 hours or until the sides of the pumpkin were tender enough to be pierced with a knife tip.