I am very pleased to report that Sunday's Solstice feast was a humungous hit with those who attended! As a reminder, here's the menu:
Chicken stuffed with goat cheese & sundried tomatoes and wrapped in prosciutto Caramelized Onion & Brie Bread Pudding
Brussels Sprouts sauteed with pancetta & pine nuts
Green Beans
Salad
Tres Leches Cake This was actually a very easy meal to put together, and the results were stunning! Apart from the bread pudding, here is the complete rundown.
First of all, the chicken. I used boneless, skinless chicken breasts and for the stuffing used1 package of peppercorn goat cheese and to that I added about 6 or so chopped sundried tomatoes. I mixed it all together in a small bowl, then cut a slit in the centre, thickest part of the chicken breasts. Each breast got about 1 tbsp of stuffing. Then, each breast was wrapped in a thin slice of prosciutto and secured with a toothpick. I baked them at 350F for about 40 minutes.
Everyone loved the chicken, which was pretty tasty, I must say. My dad even gave me a wonderful compliment by saying that it tasted like something a fancy restaurant would serve and charge a lot of money for - which was so nice to hear and the highlight of my evening!
I made this recipe up off the cuff and was a little curious about how it would turn out, if the prosciutto would shrink lots or burn, but in the end it turned out fabulously and I'll definitely keep this around.
I also made up the brussels sprouts recipe I used. I love Brussels and I realize they're not everyone's cup of tea. I wanted to do something new and exciting with them because I usually steam them and that's pretty boring. So is a cheese sauce, really. So, I came up with this simple idea.
2lbs Brussels, trimmed and sliced thinly
2 thick (1/2") slices pancetta, diced
1/3 cup pine nuts
2 tbsp olive oil
In a large skillet, fry the pancetta until nice and crisp. Add the pine nuts, and stir until they're just slighly toasted. Add the sprouts and oil and saute until tender and bright green. Voila!
This dish was also a hit, and I even manage to convert one of my diners who previously disliked Brussels sprouts to a new fan. I'd never used pancetta before in any cooking, and I was expecting it to render off way more fat than it actually did. That's what necessitated the addition of some olive oil - the pan was virtually dry when it came time to add the sprouts. The sweetness of the sprouts contrasted well with the saltiness of the pancetta, and the pine nuts added flavour and crunch. Go me! I'm on a roll!
As for the green beans and salad, there's nothing terribly special or important about them, so let's move on to dessert, which was Tres Leches Cake.
I believe I first heard about this South American dessert by doing one of those memes, either
this one or
this one. I had never had it or even heard of it before, and as I did some research on it, I was really intrigued. The Solstice was a good opportunity to try it out on some discerning eaters. I got the recipe for it from
here. Basically, you bake a cake, poke holes in it, then glaze it with a glaze made from three types of milk; the cake soaks up all the glaze, you throw some whipped cream and fruit on top, and there you go.
I made the cake part on Saturday, and it was easy enough, though it did have a lot of eggs in it. I poked holes in it as directed when it came out of the oven. When I put the glaze together, however, I became a little concerned: there was about 5 cups of the stuff and I wasn't sure if I'd followed the recipe correctly because that seemed like an awful lot of liquid for the cake to take on. But, I persisted and followed through. And eventually, the cake soaked up all the liquid in about half an hour or so, so I put it in the fridge overnight.
To serve, I decided to use blueberries I'd bought and frozen at the end of the summer to make a sauce. My brother is a blueberry fiend and he was pretty happy about my choice. Again, I winged the recipe for the sauce, but it's very simple:
3 cups blueberries
zest & juice of 1 lemon
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
1 tbsp cornstarch mixed with 1 tbsp cold water
Bring the first four ingredients to boil in a medium saucepan, then simmer for about 15 minutes. Add the cornstarch/water mixture and let the sauce bubble until thickened. Set aside to cool slightly or allow it go completely cold, depending on what you're going to do with it. In my case, I wanted it room temperature for the cake, which I also served with whipped cream (I didn't ice the cake with whipped cream because I did anticipate having leftovers and whipped cream doesn't do well left around for a long time).
Everyone totally enjoyed this, but we all agreed that it was very rich. I was back and forth about how I felt about it: I wasn't keen on the texture of the cake, but the flavour was good. The sauce was excellent. The novelty of it was pretty cool and it was a good experiment. I think if I were to do this again, I might find a different recipe that had a lighter cake and less glaze.
So there you have it. It was a spectacular meal and everyone left the table very, very full but very, very happy.
I have two more big meals coming up this week, three if you count Christmas Day breakfast. I'm looking forward to them!
Happy winter solstice, everyone!
Everything was delicious! The recipe for the Brussels is basically this one from this post, only I used regular bacon instead of pancetta, and I topped the dish with Parmesan cheese.
The cool thing about this year's Thanksgiving is that we're getting two of them in the family! When my brother & SIL get back from their trip, we're having another turkey dinner! This will be later this week, and I'll be making two dishes for it, too. Those recipes I will definitely share, so stay tuned!
Herbed Turkey Breast (from the Rival cookbook that came with the crock pot)
After the turkey was done, my dad added stock, onions, and mushrooms to the crock pot and made a tasty gravy.
Vietnamese Marinated Chicken
For dessert, I made a Banana Coconut Pudding inspired by a recipe from the sweets sections of HSSS, but instead used a shortcut provided by the lovely folks at Jello: coconut cream pie filling.
Last May I reviewed Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid's Beyond the Great Wall, and for the review I made a huge family meal with a menu and recipes taken from the book. It was a hugely successful meal, and BtGW is still on my shelves, still one of the nicest books I own. At Christmas, I was given an Amazon gift certificate by a very generous friend, and one of the books I chose was the volume written before BtGW by the same authors. On Saturday, I made a Vietnamese meal for my family - and it was another resounding success.
Aromatic Lemongrass Patties (adapted by me)
Deep-fried Jasmine Rice Balls (adapted slightly by me)
In a large bowl, combine rice, coconut, seasonings. Add the egg and mix together by hand so egg is evenly distributed throughout the rice mixture. Using wet hands, form into 10 - 15 balls. I chose smaller ones since I was deep-frying in my wok.
I didn't quite know what to serve for dessert as the sweet recipes didn't look like they'd go over well with my family, but a recipe for Bananas in Coconut Cream caught my eye on page 298. I made my own, quicker, cheaper version using Jello's coconut cream pie filling. A recipe for this will be posted soon, too. This was a great dessert, actually, and as you can see, I am not above resorting to using such shortcuts at all - but only once in a while!
First of all, the chicken. I used boneless, skinless chicken breasts and for the stuffing used1 package of peppercorn goat cheese and to that I added about 6 or so chopped sundried tomatoes. I mixed it all together in a small bowl, then cut a slit in the centre, thickest part of the chicken breasts. Each breast got about 1 tbsp of stuffing. Then, each breast was wrapped in a thin slice of prosciutto and secured with a toothpick. I baked them at 350F for about 40 minutes.
Everyone loved the chicken, which was pretty tasty, I must say. My dad even gave me a wonderful compliment by saying that it tasted like something a fancy restaurant would serve and charge a lot of money for - which was so nice to hear and the highlight of my evening!
I also made up the brussels sprouts recipe I used. I love Brussels and I realize they're not everyone's cup of tea. I wanted to do something new and exciting with them because I usually steam them and that's pretty boring. So is a cheese sauce, really. So, I came up with this simple idea.
In a large skillet, fry the pancetta until nice and crisp. Add the pine nuts, and stir until they're just slighly toasted. Add the sprouts and oil and saute until tender and bright green. Voila!
I made the cake part on Saturday, and it was easy enough, though it did have a lot of eggs in it. I poked holes in it as directed when it came out of the oven. When I put the glaze together, however, I became a little concerned: there was about 5 cups of the stuff and I wasn't sure if I'd followed the recipe correctly because that seemed like an awful lot of liquid for the cake to take on. But, I persisted and followed through. And eventually, the cake soaked up all the liquid in about half an hour or so, so I put it in the fridge overnight.
To serve, I decided to use blueberries I'd bought and frozen at the end of the summer to make a sauce. My brother is a blueberry fiend and he was pretty happy about my choice. Again, I winged the recipe for the sauce, but it's very simple:
Bring the first four ingredients to boil in a medium saucepan, then simmer for about 15 minutes. Add the cornstarch/water mixture and let the sauce bubble until thickened. Set aside to cool slightly or allow it go completely cold, depending on what you're going to do with it. In my case, I wanted it room temperature for the cake, which I also served with whipped cream (I didn't ice the cake with whipped cream because I did anticipate having leftovers and whipped cream doesn't do well left around for a long time).
Christmas is the worst time of year for me for various reasons, but luckily I have a cool family who are willing to compromise with me on the whole gift giving thing since I live on a small budget. This year, instead of buying everyone gifts, I'm going to make a really nice meal on the Solstice, AKA Yule, which falls on December 21. I have done this before in other places I've lived and it's gone over very well, and I usually make something really fancy that isn't turkey or ham, since we get lots of that on Christmas Day anyways.
