Words For A New Year

Respect your dinner; idolize it, enjoy it properly. You will be by many hours in the week, many weeks in the year, and many years in your life the happier if you do.

-William Makepeace Thackeray
Memorials of Gormandising

The Christmas Nuts

Christmas Nuts, circa 2010

Christmas Nuts, circa 2011

Christmas Nuts, circa 2012

You need these nuts. You really do.

I've been making and loving these nuts at Christmas time for several years, and, because they're so very easy to make, they're a really perfect substitute for cookies and candy and things that take so long to create. They also travel well, stay fresh in a container for a long time, and can also stand to be left out in the open air for quite awhile before getting stale. They're a perfect party favor, an excellent hostess guest, and the most amazing thing to have around the house around the holidays. And lemme tell you -- when these nuts come within a mile of cheese or a salad, pure magic happens. Plus, since they're a little on the savory side, they are a much-welcomed treat during the super-sugary holiday season. 

I quintupled this recipe, since I had purchased five pounds of nuts from Costco, and I had lots of candied nut distribution to do! Five pounds will require both a GIANT bowl, approximately five large cookie sheets worth of nuts, and five large Tupperware containers. For distribution to your friends, think glass jars, a handmade ceramic bowl, or a ribboned box. Seriously, friends, put these nuts in a dirty old bedpan and everyone will still devour these them!

Sweet and Spicy Nuts

Recipe adapted from Deb at Smitten Kitchen, who adapted the recipe from Elizabeth Karmel of the restaurant Hill Country 

1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white granulated sugar
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 pound unsalted nuts (I use almonds and pecans, but practically any nut works)
1 egg white, room temperature
1 tablespoon water

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix sugars, salt, cayenne, and cinnamon, making sure there are no lumps; set aside. Beat egg white and water until frothy but not stiff. Add nuts, and stir to coat evenly. Sprinkle nuts with sugar mixture, and toss until evenly coated. Spread sugared nuts in a single layer on a cookie sheet fitted with parchment paper. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and separate nuts as they cool.

Notes:
Give these amounts of ingredients a try with a small batch, and you'll get an idea of how you want them to taste. The original recipe called for more sugar, less salt, and less cinnamon than this, and I shifted things a bit to make them a bit more savory and salty. Honestly, I could stand for them to be even less sugary, but I've made these for a lot of folks who love them just the way they are! In terms of spice, you can use paprika instead of the cayenne if you wish, and if you stick with the cayenne, you'll really need quite a lot of it to conquer the sugar!

Today's Jams

Tupperware wishes you the best of the season with an exclusive collection of classic music to celebrate the warmth and joy of the holidays.

A wide range of songs, from traditional carols to contemporary ballads, sets the mood for the joyous spirit of this special time of year. Featuring some of America's best-loved performers, this star-studded collection is destined to be passed down from year to year as a family favorite, to treasure and enjoy throughout the holidays. Especially for you. Especially from Tupperware. 

To celebrate the season!

Side One

Arthur Fiedler & The Boston Pops Orchestra – Sleigh Ride

Dolly Parton – White Christmas

Perry Como – Medley: Caroling, Caroling; The First Noel; Hark! The Herald Angels Sing; Silent Night

Johnny Mathis – Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

Alabama – Santa Claus (I Still Believe In You)


Side Two

Nat King Cole – The Christmas Song

Anne Murray – Winter Wonderland

Jose Feliciano – Feliz Navidad

Elvis Presley – I’ll Be Home for Christmas

Henry Mancini Orchestra and Chorus – Medley: What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve; Auld Lang Syne

And That's That.

Cooking 101

Going On A Date

I'm still on this simple-cookie, non-traditional-cookie, not-so-sugary-cookie, easy-cookie mission. And I have a new one. Dates, thank you AGAIN for all you have done for me!

German Chocolate Cookies

2 C pitted dates
1 C oats
1/2 C chopped pecans
1/2 C shredded coconut
1/4 C cocoa powder
pinch of salt
chocolate or white chocolate chips, optional
water

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Add dates, oats, salt, and cocoa powder to the bowl of a food processor. Process, adding water by the tablespoon until it forms a thick paste. Add pecans and coconut and process some more, adding more water if necessary. (You'll want everything to glide around the bowl of the food processor with a relative amount of ease, but the mixture should still be thick like cookie dough.) Taste the dough, and add more of any ingredient if you see fit.

Use a cookie dough scooper to forms balls of dough. Place on a parchment-lined cookie sheet and press each one gently to make a disk. Stud each one with chocolate chips, if you like. (Cookies can be placed close together, since they won't expand much during baking.) Bake 15 minutes or until set. Cool and store in an airtight container in the fridge. These cookies have a very long life in the fridge, and are perfect for breakfast, lunch, or snacks.

You're Everything I Need*

*This is such a great tool for people who are without those really rare, hard-to-come-by cracking surfaces, like countertops and bowl edges. Also REALLY good for folks who live in places that are too soft to crack eggs anywhere, like in a cloud, or inside a pancake, or in a cotton ball. And useful for those who live in regular places, but like to crack their eggs into the air, rather than into a bowl. And, let us not forget that it's easy to carry, which means you'll never ever have to leave home without your easy egg cracker!

Relief is ours, friends. Relief is ours.

Soup For Your Woes

Happy Sunday! Don't you think you could use some soup right about now? For your deciding purposes, let's reflect on the reasons why soup is amazing:

•You can make a soup out of absolutely anything.
•No, really. I've been thinking about this. If you have at least an onion, you can make a soup.
•There are so many kinds of soup that the average human doesn't usually get sick of soup until April.
•It's lunch! It's dinner!
•It's easy to pack and reheat.
•It's better, as you know, when it's a leftover.
•It's an opportunity/excuse for consumption of carbohydrates.
•Every soup recipe creates 100 gallons of soup.
•All of your food groups fit inside soup.
•Soup is so good at being frozen!
•Spoons are my favorite utensil. Soup needs spoons, just like I do.

I started making a really incredible soup a few months ago, and I have been so excited to share it with you. Here's the back story: when Andy and I were in Bloomington, Indiana visiting his alma mater at the end of September, we went to his favorite soup spot downtown with our friend Eoban. It's called Darn Good Soup (cute, right?) and it's tiny, but I suppose soup restaurants really only need to be big enough to hold some big pots and some bowls, you know? They had tons of soup. Tons. The soup both of the boys went for immediately? Tortilla soup. Now I, being no fool at all, ordered the same thing but braced myself, as I've never met a tortilla soup that I've loved. But this soup changed my mind. Chicken, beans, corn, onion, and a whole mess of other delicious bits. The selling point, though? It's texture. Seriously creamy, and thick, and more like a stew or a chowder than a soup. I was sold. I, of course, had to make it immediately.

I began researching tortilla soup that night in bed, and I discovered that the key to a creamy tortilla soup is refried beans, thinned out a bit with the broth. And, when I made the soup, I discovered this to be true. It's substantial and lovely and, as far as soups go, the prep on this one is pretty easy and smooth. If you have had tortilla soup in the past, and you weren't too thrilled about it, I want you to try this one, because the consistency is really different than what you may be used to. I know I always hyperactively declare things EASY ENOUGH FOR A WORK NIGHT!!!, but it's true with this soup. Granted, it'll be even easier on the weeknight when it's already made and all you have to do is pull it out of your fridge or freezer, but it really is doable to make this when you get home from work.

Happy end-of-Sunday, everyone, and good luck with this workweek. You can do it! I believe in you!

Tortilla Soup

4 T unsalted butter OR 4 T olive oil
32 oz can diced tomatoes
32 oz chicken or vegetable broth
16 oz refried beans (I use the fat free kind because I don't really think that refried beans need lard)
1/2 corn (frozen or canned or fresh)
1/2 rotisserie chicken, shredded
1 large onion, diced
4 large garlic cloves, minced
1 heaping T chili powder
1 heaping T cumin
1 poblano pepper, diced
1 jalapeño pepper, diced (unless it's a really crazy hot one -- then use less!)
salt and pepper

Sauté onion and peppers in olive oil or melted butter. When the onions are to your liking (I like to cook the hell out of mine, getting them a little caramelized and pretty darn brown) add cumin, chili powder, and garlic, plus 1/2 t each salt and pepper. Cook, stirring with a wooden spoon, until spices are wet and thick (about 1 minute, maybe a bit longer -- they should be very aromatic). Add tomatoes, beans, corn, and broth, and mix until smooth. Cook through, and then add chicken, plus some more salt, pepper, and heat (red pepper flakes, hot sauce) to taste. That's it! You're done!

Top with cilantro, sour cream or plain Greek yogurt, lime juice, and tortilla chips.

Note about ambitiousness: If you're feeling really adventurous, you can make your own tortilla strips by slicing stale corn tortillas into thin strips and frying or baking them, but this isn't crucial in my book. The beauty of this soup is that it is so incredibly easy, and creating this soup will make you feel really accomplished in the way a cheater might feel after stealing the win in CandyLand, so making chips might suck too much of that glory right out of this project. But making chips might also make you feel like a wizard, in which case you should do it!

It Must Be True

Only A Rooster

My Dirty Habit

What my garlic bowl typically looks like.

Finally, upon cleaning it out one day, 

since I -- uh -- needed some garlic. 

This is the amount of garlic 

that actually lived inside.