Candied Grapefruit Peel

We're moving toward Advent: a time to feather your nest, play John Rutter and cook up a storm. So today I'm sharing another Christmas classic: candied grapefruit peel. It takes something you'd normally throw away and makes it so delicious. My auntie Flo suggests dipping it in dark chocolate, but I love it plain. It's definitely a motivation to eat your grapefruit in the morning--Andrew and I have been saving our empty grapefruit halves in a Ziplock bag in the fridge. You could also make it with oranges, or really any citrus. Mommy helped Andrew and me make our first batch, seven grapefruits' worth, when she and Daddy were here a few weeks ago. Mommy always says that it is even more precious because of all the work that goes into it!

I'm posting the version of the recipe that Mommy wrote up a few years ago because it is full of her wisdom.

Candied Grapefruit Peel
This recipe comes from the original Joy of Cooking but obviously, it's much older. I love how it uses something you'd otherwise throw away (or compost).

Slice grapefruit peel into thin slices and remove all the pith (the white part). I use a small paring knife for this and it takes forever. A good movie and/or a glass of wine (or homemade egg nog) helps.

Cover peel with cold water and bring slowly to a boil. Drain thoroughly. Repeat 5 times. This removes the bitterness of the peel.

The peel, ready to go in the sugar syrup

Make a sugar syrup using 1/4 cup water and 1/2 cup sugar for the peel of one grapefruit or two oranges.

Boil the peel in the syrup until all syrup is absorbed. Cool slightly. Roll in granulated sugar and spread to dry. This part has to be done pretty quickly because if you let the syruped peel cool too much you can't spread it.

Sugared peel can be dipped in chocolate if desired.

Keeps a long time in a tin but a very short time in a dish (because you'll be eating it!).

Egg Nog

It's time for one of my favorite Christmas traditions: egg nog. Growing up, Harrison and I were stuck with  the storebought fake stuff--we'd thin it with milk to make it taste better. But now we're allowed to have the real stuff, from the milk gallon marked EGG NOG. It tastes like joy and happiness and sitting by the fire on Christmas Eve with cookies and friends before you head to the third service at church. It's a very old family recipe: Auntie Nette has the recipe written in my great-great-great grandmother Jane Paxon Ely Bailey's own hand.

 The original recipe calls for a dozen eggs, but since salmonella is a thing, we've been using Egg Beaters.

Andrew and me before Christmas Weekend his senior year!

 If you don't like egg nog--or, worse, if you think that storebought stuff mixed with rum is yummy--you must try this recipe. Instead of being thick and gross, it's light and airy and creamy and spiced and amazing. Andrew didn't think he liked egg nog until I made it for him his senior year; he's made it every Christmas since. Actually, we went ahead and made some while I was baking my pecan pie the Tuesday before Thanksgiving... we deserved it!

Andrew gave me a Jefferson cup with my future monogram last Christmas for my egg nog!

Egg Nog (my third-great-grandmother's recipe)
If you're using whole eggs (or just the yolks): Separate the yolks from the whites in 1 dozen eggs. Beat yolks with 12 Tablespoons sugar until very light. Beat whites in a flat dish.

If you're using Egg Beaters: Mix together 1 dozen egg-equivalent with 12 Tablespoons sugar.

Mix 9 oz. cognac and 4 1/2 oz. rum in a pitcher. Pour liquor very slowly into yolks (or Egg Beaters), stirring until well mixed. Pour in 1 quart milk, 1 pint light cream and 1 pint whipping cream. Add allspice, cloves and nutmeg to taste. Pour in egg whites (if separated) at the end. I like to sprinkle some nutmeg on top before serving.

Turkey-spinach pie, or, What to do with your Thanksgiving leftovers

It's already Christmas in our house. After the FSU game yesterday (which we won't even talk about), Andrew and I have been putting up lights and decorating the tree. We're currently watching Elf while I blog and he knits!

However, if you're still living in the house where you ate on Thursday, you're probably still dealing with Thanksgiving leftovers. Growing up, we'd always have turkey tetrazinni, Harrison's favorite. I don't like mushrooms, though, so when we had our turkey dinner earlier this month, Mom and I found this unique answer to extra turkey. The phyllo dough makes it just beautiful! And it tasted amazing. (It should be no secret by now that spinach is one of my favorite foods!)

Turkey-spinach pie, from the Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook

Slice two leeks and mince a clove of garlic. Cook them in butter until the leeks are tender.

Combine the leek mixture with 3 eggs (slightly beaten), 10 ounces frozen chopped spinach (thawed and drained), 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese, 2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese, 2/3 cup milk and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.

Chop 2 cups cooked turkey or chicken, and mix in with everything else.

Layer 6 sheets phyllo dough in a pie pan, brushing each layer with melted butter. Spoon the filling into the crust and fold the dough toward the center.

Bake at 375 degrees for 45-50 minutes, and let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Thanksgiving: Stuffing, Carrots and Pecan Pie

I'm back! As you may have noticed from the incessant Christmas ads, Thanksgiving is upon us. Thanksgiving is really one of my favorite holidays because it's so unpretentious. It's about eating a delicious meal with people you love. Better yet, it's about preparing a delicious meal with the people you love. It's worth waking up early to throw on an apron, watch the Macy's parade and brown flour for the gravy. Every family has their own traditions: in my family, it isn't Thanksgiving without rice, at least five types of cranberry sauce and wine jelly with boiled custard. Well, that isn't strictly true. We've had Thanksgiving with a lot of different people, not just with family in the same city every year, which I think is great: you can have the same holiday in many different ways. Which is why it's okay that I've married into a mashed potatoes family...

However, I firmly believe that Thanksgiving shouldn't be the only day of the year when you go all out and cook your favorite foods. For this reason (and because Andrew got a free turkey with his flu shot), we had turkey dinner when my parents came to visit last week.

At Wakulla Springs

My parents' visit was wonderful. Daddy hadn't been to Tallahassee before, and Mommy had only been to help me move some of my stuff down before the wedding, so we got to spend the long weekend showing them everything the beautiful town of Tallahassee has to offer. We went to Wakulla Springs, Maclay Gardens, the fair... and Mommy's college friend Susan and her husband Mike came to visit! We saved turkey for the night they were coming because we would need help eating it.

So here are some of my favorite recipes that I made last week and one that I'll make tomorrow night to take to Tampa. If my mom sends me some other family favorites (wine jelly and cranberry chutney??), I'll post them; they don't seem to be in my recipe file just yet!

The feast. I love any excuse to pull out the fine china and crystal.
Andrew, as you can see, loves milk.

Grandmama's Sausage Stuffing
My grandmama was an absolutely incredible cook. I remember Thanksgiving weekends helping her roll out and cut the yeast rolls for dinner (a competitive item when my twin cousins, uncle and I were at the same end of the table). This is her stuffing recipe, which I think is absolutely fantastic. We didn't put it in the bird last week, since it makes the cooking take longer, but if you have time it's worth it.

Cut 1 pound sausage (the kind that comes in a giant roll) into 4 slices. Cook it on the stove, breaking it up into small pieces while it cooks. Once all the sausage is browned, take it out and put it in a bowl.

Meanwhile, take 1 pound of soft white bread. Old bread is great; if it's fresh, set the slices out to dry a little so they harden. In my family, we try to save heels and crusts in the freezer and thaw them for stuffing. Then cut the bread up into small pieces.

Chop 1 large or 2 medium onions, and cook it in the sausage grease until soft and clear. Mix the onion, sausage and bread together, and add salt and pepper to taste.

If you're cooking it outside the bird, add chicken broth (I used 2 cups for the whole thing) and heat in a 350-degree oven for 30 minutes. The chicken broth softens it, since it's missing out on those yummy drippings from the bird.

Carrots Vindalee
I believe this is a more recent recipe in my family's Thanksgiving arsenal, but it is a great one. This is the only version of cooked carrots Andrew will eat. It's from the "Mountain Elegance" cookbook by the Junior League of Asheville, NC. (Thank you to Auntie Flo for correcting my original, poorly remembered version!) You can never have enough vegetables at Thanksgiving, and the orange brightens up the plate.

Cut 4 or 5 carrots into thin slices. Chop 1 celery heart, including the leaves. Cook the carrots and celery on the stove covered in dry white wine and a tablespoon or two of sugar. The wine should cook down so it isn't soupy. Add a teaspoon or two of dill and enjoy!

The Jackson, MS Junior League Pecan Pie
This is what I'm making for Thanksgiving this year and I'm so excited. Not only is it delicious--better than any other pecan pie you have ever eaten ever--but it is incredibly fun to make. I'm even going all out and making my own pie crust (thanks, Eleanor!). This recipe came from Becky Heishman, a good family friend. Daddy likes to call it PEAKEN pie.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Bake a 9-inch pie shell for 3 or 4 minutes. Cook 1/2 cup butter, 1 1/4 cups sugar and 1/2 cup light corn syrup over low heat until the butter melts. Do not let it boil. Cool slightly.

Lightly beat 3 eggs (the recipe notes, "Do not unloose your inner masochist"). Stir them into the mixture--be careful not to add the eggs while it's too warm or they will start to cook and you will be very embarrassed in front of your auntie who's chopping carrots. Mix the eggs in well.

Finely chop 1 1/2 cup pecans, and add them to the mixture with 1 tsp vanilla. (I like to reserve 1/2 cup or so pecans to arrange a pretty pattern on the top, but you don't have to.) Pour filling into crust and bake for 40-45 minutes. Pie should be soft in center when removed from oven.

Chocolate tiffin

Last week I had a Pi Phi Alumnae Club meeting, and it was wine & cheese & dessert. I wanted a dessert that was a little unusual, and chocolate tiffin fit the bill. I'd wanted to make chocolate tiffin since my weekend in London during my summer in Provence. It's a kind of cake or cookie bar made of crushed "digestive biscuits" that's popular with British children. I think it's similar to Prince William's groom's cake from the royal wedding, so if that isn't motivation I don't know what is.

These are digestive biscuits. I found them in the ethnic foods aisle at Publix, which I thought was funny.

It's an easy recipe and it makes a ton. I had decided to double it for some reason, which means that I had leftover tiffin to bring to tailgating and to lunch at work every day. Extra chocolate has never been a problem ever, but I think one times the recipe makes plenty. It feels so indulgent to make because of the melted chocolate. And of course you have to lick the spoon...

You have to be careful with melting chocolate, and what cooking blog would this be if I didn't warn you? I used my shiny new double boiler. You can also rig up a double boiler with two saucepans, or melt it for a few seconds at a time in the microwave.

My other question with this recipe is if there should be more butter and Karo syrup to the crushed biscuits. That's basically the glue that holds the cookie crumbs together. I could have crushed the biscuits into smaller pieces--you really want crumbs!--and that may have been my problem with biscuit pieces crumbling off and making it a little messy. But it could also maybe use a little more butter.

Chocolate tiffin
Crush 8 oz Rich Tea biscuits into really small pieces. Melt 4 oz butter, 2 tablespoons sugar, 2 tablespoons Karo syrup and 4 teaspoons cocoa. Add the biscuits and (optional) 1 handful of raisins. Mix and pour into a jelly roll pan or something similar.

Meanwhile, melt 4 oz milk chocolate and 4 oz dark chocolate. Pour the melted chocolate over the biscuit mixture.

Let the tin set in the frige for at least an hour. Cut into pieces to serve.

Roasted tomato soup

As I've gotten older (yikes! I promise people still think I'm 18!) I've realized that fall might be my favorite time of year. I love the way it starts to get cold, giving me an excuse to pull out my cardigans and tights and frolic in the leaves. Or, since I live in Florida, I love the way I decide it is the end of September and I have waited long enough for soup season.

This is a Pinterest recipe I've been wanting to try for a while. If you've been reading this blog for a while or have talked to me ever, you may know that I love tomatoes. And I love tomato soup. I was probably the only girl at camp who got excited when lunch on a 100-degree day was tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. It is one of my favorite things of all time, but somehow my tomato soup-making had never progressed past opening a can. Andrew's been sick the past couple of days--which is sad, and I want him to get better, but it did mean I got to make soup. By the time I made it, he was curled up under three blankets again, fast asleep... so I ate most of it myself. You snooze, you lose?

 The perfect lonely-girl dinner?

This recipe is truly, extraordinarily good. The flavors are perfectly balanced, thanks in part to oven-roasting some of the tomatoes before you toss them in. I used my immersion blender to break up the tomatoes and make it a creamier, thicker soup, but I left some of the roasted tomatoes intact. I ate it with a grilled cheese sandwich made in my jaffel iron, which is the only reason why there's any soup left over.

Roasted tomato soup
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Put around 2 cups small tomatoes on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle some salt and pepper on top. Roast them for about 15 minutes, until the skins start to break open.

Mince 2 garlic cloves and dice a small onion. Sautee them in some olive oil in a saucepan until they get translucent. Add in the roasted tomatoes, 3 cups chicken broth, 28 oz diced tomatoes, 1 teaspoon garlic powder, 1/2 teaspoon black pepper and 1 tablespoon fresh basil, chopped. Bring the soup to a boil, then let it simmer partially covered for 20 minutes.

Blend the soup with an immersion blender and enjoy!

How to eat an entire chicken, day 3: Chicken pot pie

Such a delay between posts, I know! But I hope that this recipe is worth the wait. It's one of my all-time favorite comfort foods. I first made it for Andrew and Andy during Christmas weekend at W&L. Neville Skyped in and Allison was there, and it was lovely. The last time I made this, Andrew was teaching late and didn't come home until the pot pie was almost out of the oven--about 7:00. The look on his face when he realized that chicken pot pie was waiting for him was just priceless. (I was too distracted with feeding him to take pictures of dinner...)

It's really easy, and you can vary the vegetables based on what you want. I've made it with potatoes before, but I really love carrots, peas and corn. I use Bisquick for the topping plus a couple of extra biscuits, but a puff pastry would also work. Leftovers are yummy, as always. This is especially good when you're using up your cooked chicken and your homemade stock... but you can also cook up some chicken breasts or whatever you have. Classic comfort food, made even better with a side salad.

Chicken pot pie
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Dice an onion and 2 carrots, and sautee them in 4 tablespoons butter in a skillet with high edges. Add 1 cup frozen corn and 1 cup frozen peas. After they've cooked for a few minutes, stir in 1/2 cup flour and cook for another minute to make a roux. Pour in 2 cups milk and 2 cups chicken broth, stirring constantly, until the sauce begins to thicken. Remove from heat, add 1 pound cooked chicken (shredded or chopped). Stir in 1 teaspoon dried thyme and some salt and pepper.

Pour the mixture into a casserole dish. Roll out biscuit dough and cut into a shape that will cover your dish. Bake until the biscuit topping is golden, about 35 minutes.