Christmas Cheer and Making Messes

I really felt the need to bake Christmas cookies this year. I knew we didn't need to eat five batches of cookies, but I really wanted to bake. Jeffrey came up with the perfect solution.

The Let's PLAY! children's workshop holiday showcase was this Saturday at Brunswick Little Theatre, and he thought it would be nice to have cookies and cider for the kids and their parents and friends who came to see the show.

I was going to write this blog post about the cookies I made, but I took a picture of the aftermath in the kitchen, and knew this post had to be about something else. So here's the short version on the cookie deal. We (yes, it was a group effort) made pumpkin cookies with a brown sugar glaze, peanut butter blossom cookies with peanut butter-filled chocolate chips on top instead of Hershey Kisses (not what we intended but it totally worked out) and shortbread chocolate chip cookies with cinnamon sugar. 

Our little reception got rave reviews. The kids loved the cookies, and so did the adults. One little girl asked me if I made a certain cookie and when I said yes, she told me I should do that more often. :-) What a nice feeling it was to see everyone enjoying themselves during and after the show. 

So this is what the kitchen looked like after we were done baking. Now, I did my own share of the mess-making, but Jeffrey surpassed my efforts when he was left unsupervised to work on the shortbread cookies. 

There is just so much "us" in this picture. There's a Mickey plate in the background. It's a plate, but we keep it propped up against the backsplash so we can see it because, well, it's Mickey. There's a bottle of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce on the counter. Not cookie related, of course, but we have a long-running joke about Lea & Perrins since I once scoffed at Jeffrey for even thinking of buying something other than "the name" in Worcestershire sauce. There is a pint glass we used to dip in the cinnamon sugar. The bowl of sugar is a baby bowl that the boy has long outgrown but I now use for a variety of things in the kitchen. The flour container, seen behind the pint glass, says "Instant Milky White." See, it was used during BLT's production of "Into the Woods" this summer. They used flour to make the fake Milky White cow and the boy holding it, well, somewhat Milky. There was obviously a mini chocolate chip spill, and there's a new stain on that page of the cookie cookbook. 

That's the Stites life in a nutshell. There's always a story, and though sometimes it's messy, it's always full of love and joy.  

Pink....not just for princesses anymore

I mentioned in an earlier post that having a Whole Foods store in Wilmington means new ingredients never before available in this part of North Carolina are now mine for the trying. I am probably not the typical customer for this store though, because I want to shop there for the variety of ingredients offered, not because something is organic or fits into a vegan diet. 

One part of the store that fascinates me is the wall o' grains. When I was in college, the cafeterias had large plastic dispensers of cereal so we could help ourselves a bowl at a time. The wall o' grains uses the same mechanism. Grab a bag and fill it up with whatever rice or nut you want to try. They also have bins and scoops, but those aren't as fun. So the last time I was there, I decided to get some pink rice. I had no idea what it was, but c'mon. It was pink. I could figure out what to do with it later.

When I got home I asked Google about it and from the store's website, I learned that that this rice was nearly extinct. One farmer in Madagascar brought it back from just one seed, or so the story goes. The site also said the rice was pink because of the way it is milled, leaving some of the bran layer on the grains. And it said the rice was "elusively aromatic of cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg." Ever the skeptic, I wasn't sure what to think of that fairly pompous description. But when I cooked it the other night, that's exactly what it smelled like.

This rice is amazing and I am so glad I tried it. Cooking it is simple. Just boil a cup and a half of liquid for every cup of rice, bring it down to a simmer, cover, and cook 20 minutes or so until it is done. I added salt and a little butter, just as I would for white rice. I used water, but chicken stock would work too. It's a bit stickier than plain white rice, which I liked. I made too much, but used the leftovers for lunch the next day. I roasted a few baby heirloom tomatoes and red bell pepper strips with olive oil, salt and pepper in the morning and added it to the rice.

My next plan for it is rice cakes. I use this recipe from Barefoot Contessa for risotto cakes, and I think this rice, maybe with some dried cranberries, would be seriously yummy as a rice cake. I'll let you know how they come out. 

Fat Tuesday Oak Island style

We had plans for Fat Tuesday this year, but when they fell through, friends invited us over for dinner. We decided to do a Gourmet (sort of) Pancake Bar for dinner.

I got right to work researching pancake toppings. I found a couple of really helpful sites, like http://foodiesunite.com/2011/02/102-pancake-toppings-for-national-pancake-day/. Pancakes are pretty plain on their own, so there are so many toppings options. What to choose, what to choose...

I settled on a range of toppings. We'd have plain maple syrup, strawberry syrup, fruit and whipped cream for

the pancake novices. Then some cinnamon honey butter and blueberry honey butter for the slightly more sophisticated palates. And why not ginger-infused maple syrup served with peaches or some rum-soaked bananas? But there had to be one over-the-top selection: shallot thyme butter, smoked salmon, Greek yogurt (instead of sour cream) and chives. Let me just say that this shallot thyme butter has not made its last appearance in our kitchen. In fact tonight we topped our steaks with it (see recipe below). I think it would also be great on green beans, asparagus or most any kind of vegetable. 

Misty was a great sport. She is not very adventurous when it comes to food, but she did try the smoked salmon. She spit it out immediately, but she did try it. I'm glad I didn't suggest caviar.

Of everything we had, it seems the strawberries with whipped cream and the blueberry honey butter were the people's choice. My personal favorites were the ginger syrup and the shallot thyme butter with smoked salmon.

Jeff loved the rum-soaked bananas so much that he finished off the extra at the end of the night. (We used Captain Morgan's Black Spiced Rum. I will never drink another kind of spiced rum again. Ever. It is that good.) That's the ginger syrup in the Guinness glass in this picture - I had to transport everything and I wanted it to still be pour-able.

To round out the meal, there was bacon and sausage and grits. I actually ate, and for the first time in my life, even liked the grits. I am calling the night a great success and I hope we do it all over again next year. Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Shallot Thyme Butter
8 tablespoons butter at room temperature (1 stick)
2 medium to large shallots
2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme
salt and pepper (I used Kosher salt)

Melt 1-2 tablespoons butter in heavy small skillet over medium heat. Add shallots and sauté until brown, about 4 minutes. Cool. Combine remaining 6-7 tablespoons butter and thyme in small bowl. Add shallot mixture and blend well. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve at room temperature.