Black Eyed Peas and FAIL

Every New Year, we are supposed to eat "good luck" foods.  I don't really know if this works, but I'm going to go with it since last year I didn't do this and some not-so-good things went on in there.  While in reality things might be exactly as they are supposed to be, they kind of stung, so to me this year, "having good luck" means "avoiding suffering." What foods are good luck, you ask? Well, really, since every culture has their own superstitions, pretty much anything goes.....noodles, fish, round baked goods (really, I read it on the Internets). In the South, black eyed peas and collard greens, and some throw in red rice for good measure (it contains bacon, so I am for it). Apparently collard greens symbolize that foldin' money, and black eyed peas (sometimes cooked with a dime in them?? Did no one ever tell you how DIRTY money is?) show prosperity because they increase in size when cooked. Pork products symbolize moving forward because of the way pigs root (I'm not really sure if that is true but because Wikipedia says so, it must be). Furthermore, during the War of Northern Aggression, the damned Yankees didn't steal these items because they thought they were only good for animal fodder. Personally, I love all the many and varied gifts that come in pig-shaped packages, have never been known to leave a carb behind, and though I am not really a fan of black eyed peas, I will like them because the Yankees didn't. I'm sticking to the rice and peas though because I don't like collards (there I said it) and Northerners have yet to show me an opinion on them.

Now, this is a first for me; I have not exactly made these things before.  Yes, I have made beans of various types and it has not ever turned out well.  They soak for hours and cook for even more hours and are still hard and don't taste very good. I'm already sweating the planning for the bean cooking because I know they are going to annoy and disappoint me, but that's nothing I haven't experienced before.

What is truly new is this red rice thing. I hadn't thought about it much until over Christmas, when a certain someone who shall remain nameless informed me that red rice is a giant pain in the A**. This hadn't occurred to me since I was pretty sure I had mastered the Art of Boiling Water. So the first thing I did after a 7-hour drive back up to DC on Sunday was leap out of the car and look up a recipe so I could begin to prepare myself for this, and did you know it is made in a casserole dish? I don't even know if I have the right recipe but this is what I am going with. So, for your cooking pleasure, a completely untested, possibly incorrect recipe that I will be making tomorrow. And since I plan on being hung over (Hi, Mom!), it will be even more heinous challenging.

Savannah Style Red Rice

4 to 6 9-12 slices bacon
1 medium onion, chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped (Celery only comes in large amounts though so I am skipping this)
1/2 bell pepper, chopped (UM or a whole one since they don't come in HALVES)
2 cups uncooked rice (I estimated that I have enough and didn't buy more. Considering my previous measurement eyeballing skills, this was probably a mistake)
3 1/2 cups of chicken broth
1 can of tomato paste
2 teaspoons salt, or to taste (Read:  you are gonna put in TOO MUCH)
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 scant teaspoon sugar (Only someone from Georgia would consider "scant" a valid measurement)
3 or 4 drops Tabasco, or to taste (It's a fine line between a pleasant level of heat and burning your roommate's face off)

Ponderous Steps:  
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cook bacon slices in a large skillet over medium high heat until crisp (and there's grease everywhere and you've set the smoke alarm off 3 times).
3. Remove bacon, and drain on paper towels, reserving 2 tbsp drippings in skillet. Crumble bacon and set aside.
4. Saute chopped onions and pepper in hot drippings over medium heat for 3 minutes or until tender.
5. Add tomato paste to skillet, stirring until mixture is smooth (or burned).
6. Gradually stir in chicken broth, stirring to loosen particles from bottom of skillet.
7. Stir in sugar, salt and pepper.
8. Bring to a boil; reduce heat, and simmer, stirring occasionally, 10 minutes (the longest 10 minutes of your life. Simmering is such a fine line).
9. Stir in rice and bring to a boil.
10. Stir in bacon pieces (the BEST PART)
11. Pour mixture into a lightly greased (or alternatively, heavily buttered) baking dish bake for 1 hour or until rice is tender (We both know it won't be an hour. And then you'll spend 30 extra minutes standing by the oven, opening and closing it and poking at the rice trying to estimate whether it's done).


Makes 8 normal people side dish servings but since this is dinner by itself, probably only like 3.

Painful Christmas Cake with Tearful Icing

Big cake. Big headache. Big flavor!

People used in photo to show actual cake size.


If you have an extra fridge in the garage, you can make this cake.

The recipe for this 8th Wonder of the Cake World includes expected cake ingredients such as flour, sugar and vanilla. However, the recipe did not make mention of a few other key requirements:

1. 
   
   
   Personal time from work because the cake takes 2 days to make (without sleep or breaks). This allows enough time to read the lengthy recipe 42 times in disbelief throughout the entire process, make 1 emergency run to the store and have 2 crying jags.
   
   
   
2. 
   
   
   A vat of whipping cream on standby to be used as Plan B Frosting (see above, "emergency run to the store") because for some unknown reason the original frosting recipe (or Plan A Frosting) results in a sugary substance that looks more like it could be used to whitewash a fence or glue balsa parts together to make a model airplane. This is mysterious because you know you followed the recipe exactly as printed, you are not working in extreme cold or heat and your kitchen is at an altitude close to sea level.
   
   
   
3. 
   
   
   A really big, strong platter on which to rest the towering cake. I cannot emphasize enough the necessity for a robust serving apparatus. Honestly, anything on which a baby elephant could balance would probably work.
   
   
   
4. 
   
   
   An interest in botany--without which you could not sustain enough interest (or patience) to select leaves to use as a tool with which to use along with white chocolate to craft the flourishes set atop the cake. An ornate arrangement (or pile) of raspberries helps to anchor the sweet sculpted mimicry of Mother Nature.
   
   
   
5. 
   
   
   Adequate storage space for the completed product.
   
   
   

Discontinued Traditions

I almost don't even want to bring this up.

Everyone has different holiday traditions.  For example, at Thanksgiving my mother's side of the family always serves an oyster casserole (shudder).  A friend of mine always has grilled turkey.  There's always some reason for these random difference in family traditions--the oysters are to appease my grandfather, the grilled turkey because they run out of room in the oven.  Sometimes you have to look pretty hard to find the reasons, and sometimes you decide that the reasons are no longer important.  Sometimes, the tradition turns out to be so heinous, so difficult, and so time-consuming that you don't want to continue doing it despite all the Memories.

For me this tradition is bourbon balls.  The bourbon ball recipe is described by some as a "Southern," "easy," and "elegant" tradition.  I can assure you that it is only one of these things.  Some of my first memories of Christmas in North Carolina include my Nana's bourbon balls, and so as soon as I got old enough to contribute to the holiday cooking extravaganza, I asked my mom to buy me some liquor.  So that I could learn to make candy.

At any rate, I quickly learned what a pain in the ass this lovely Southern tradition is.  And also that I don't even like bourbon.  But year after year, people asked for the bourbon balls, and I never wanted to let them down.  Did I notice that only 3.5 of the candies I made got eaten?  Yes.  Did I ever actually enjoy the following process?  No.  The reason I didn't want to bring this up is because I don't make these anymore, and reminding people that I used to might open the floor to suggestions about how I should be making them this year. If you try it, then you'll see why this is no longer in the traditional Christmas rotation.

Bourbon Balls
1/2 cup walnuts or pecans
1/2 cup butter
1 cup confectioner's sugar
1 jigger bourbon
Semi-sweet baking chocolate, in blocks
Paraffin (Yes I said WAX.  For your FOOD)

Ponderous Steps:
1 Allow the butter to come to room temperature.  This takes patience and also planning and is the first part of this recipe that sucks.
2 Cream together the butter and the powdered sugar. Finely chop the pecans. Add the bourbon (what is a "jigger"? beats the heck out of me...for us less technical types, or those only in possession of souvenir shot glasses from Mexico, it means "some") and the pecans and mix well.
3 Refrigerate the whole mess for a few hours.  Again, this requires aforethought that we here at the Put-Upon Chef just don't possess.  In general, it's a good idea to read the recipe before beginning it to make sure you have enough time to actually complete it.  Whatever.
4 When the mixture is chilled, roll it into small, bite-sized balls.  My nana's were always even, beautiful spheres, but I just don't have her patience.  As you work with it, the dough will start to thaw and stick to your hands, at which point you should abandon small, bite-seized balls and settle for large, misshapen lumps.
5 Here comes the flinchy part.  In a double boiler, heat a few squares of the baking chocolate and 1 inch or so of the paraffin block.  And don't worry, technically paraffin is edible.  It will give your candies that unnatural glossy finish, and Gulf Wax kind of has a monopoly on the situation so if you can't find that then you are probably looking at supplies for candle making, which are not ingestable.  Inevitably, the water in the bottom of the double boiler will actually boil over without warning and burn you. While you speed around the kitchen trying to bandage yourself and running cold water on your burns, the chocolate will start to burn too.
6 Stick a bamboo skewer (didn't mention that part in the ingredients section, did I?? Welcome to cooking!) in the top of a ball to pick it up, and swirl it around in the chocolate.  Set to dry on top of waxed paper, which you won't have because no one buys that stuff anymore, so you'll just have to estimate whether a surface is nonstick.  Repeat...and repeat...and repeat.  At some point the chocolate will run low, and you will need to dip while simultaneously tipping the double boiler, a strategy that will most likely end in some kind of injury.  Chocolate dipping is not for sissies.

Now you will have about 20.5 more bourbon balls than anyone will eat.  They are sure to be a hit, but you will have already decided that you hate them.  My only suggestion to you:  Complete years of therapy and learn that "No" is a complete sentence and that Christmas happiness does not depend on whether you do the same things year after year.

The Put-Upon Chef has only 1 mixing bowl. Must use saucepan for flour part.

Stupid Swap Cookies

One good way to get into the holiday spirit is to bake cookies. If you're like me, you want to try something different each and every year, and you seem to enjoy the feeling you get when your fun new ideas turn into a giant FAIL. And, naturally, if baking a few cookies makes you feel warm and fuzzy, than so will baking a whole freaking lot of cookies. To accomplish top levels of holiday spirit, get invited to a holiday cookie swap. That way, you will have an actual reason to bake upwards of 8 dozen cookies. In order to make the most out of your experience, just follow these 10 easy steps.

1. Wait until the day of the party to get started, so that you will have absolutely no room for error. Put off going to the grocery store or even looking at your chosen recipe for as long as possible. Plan to wake up early on Swap Day so that you can get it all done.

2. Wake up early, but put the process off for even longer by spending an hour in bed thinking about how this seemed like a really cool and fun idea a month ago when you agreed to participate. When you do get to the store, make sure to bring a big list so that you can maximize your own confusion and do as many laps around the Harris Teeter as you can possibly justify.

3. You might already have some of the ingredients, so be sure not to expend extra resources on buying fresh ones. Especially not brown sugar. Brown sugar lasts forever, and it only gets a little bit hard over time. When you combine rock-hard brown sugar with the butter, it will stay in little pebbles that launch themselves out of the bowl at ridiculously high speeds. This might not make for very uniform cookies, but it keeps you from getting too lazy.

4. Keep your phone on you so you can halfheartedly text people to ask for advice, but refuse to heed any of it. They're not there, and you have the situation under control.

5. Begin combining the dry ingredients. Remember that you only bought one mixing bowl at Ikea, so use a sauce pan that barely fits 6 cups of flour in it. As you estimate measurements (who has time to make sure it is a full, level cup every single time??), ponder on how the last time you baked something, it was Easter and you got food poisoning. Notice that you don't have multiple bowls because you moved since then and refused to take anything with you that wouldn't fit in one car. Resolve to never leave kitchen implements behind again, ever.

6. After blending in the flour and folding (whatever that means) in the chopped walnuts, taste the dough, even though you'll probably get salmonella from the raw eggs. Notice how, even though you are making "Maple Cookies," it tastes just like chocolate chip cookie dough, only not as good because there's no chocolate in them. This might be because you do not in fact know what a cup and a half of maple syrup looks like, and didn't have nearly enough to justify calling them "Maple Cookies." You don't have any extra left over for waffles, either.

7. Take frequent breaks. This is important. Don't make all the cookies at once, where is the fun in that? Prolong your cookie-making experience for as long as possible. Take a walk with a friend who already made her cookies, or go run some errands. This also maximizes the chances that someone you meet along the way will agree to come back to your house and help you. Work this into the conversation by asking people what they are doing with their day. Make sure you tell them that you have to make like 6 dozen more cookies before 7 PM.

8. While you are baking them, make sure they are not all the same size. Make some of them way too big so that you can run out of dough before you get to the necessary number of cookies, and then you have to split some of them up after they already started baking and it turns into a big mess. Claim you're not worried about the situation even though this is the most stressful cookie-making experience since last year.

9. Now you have to choose how to present your cookies. Sandwich-sized bags are too small because some of your cookies are abnormally large, and gallon-sized bags are too big and it looks funny. Decide to wad them up in Saran wrap because that looks very classy. Tie a piece of ribbon around each package. Leave out the three extra for party purposes and act like you will take them, but eat them right before leaving, because let's just face it--three extra cookies just looks like a pathetic offering.

10. When you get to the party, be sure to point out that you forgot to bring copies of your recipe like you were supposed to, but it's okay because "they're nothing to write home about." Mention that you only chose the recipe because it has very few ingredients. Don't forget to point out that they are just like chocolate chip cookies, only not as delicious.

Maple Cookies

3 sticks of unsalted butter, room temperature works better but requires extra planning
3 cups of dark brown sugar
3 teaspoons of vanilla extract
3 large eggs
1 and 1/2 cups of maple syrup
6 cups of all-purpose flour
1 and 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda
1 and 1/2 teaspoon of salt
as many chopped walnuts as your money will buy

Ponderous Steps:
1 Cream the butter and sugar together at medium speed for three minutes or until light and fluffy.
2 Add the vanilla extract and egg and mix until well incorporated. Add the maple syrup and mix until well incorporated.
3 In a separate bowl saucepan, sift mix together the flour, baking soda and salt. Slowly add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix until just incorporated. Fold in the walnuts. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for thirty minutes or a few hours, while you do other, more important stuff.
4 Preheat the oven to 350F. Drop spoonfuls of the cookie, about 1 inch balls, onto cookies sheets lined with parchment paper. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges. Allow to cool on the cookie sheet for a minute or two then cram into bags last-minute.


Makes about 99 cookies when you really need more like 108.