The World is My Dinner Party: Kwanzaa

Coronapocalypse Christmas. Who knew years and years of not being with family for Important Dates would be a superpower. Sure, I miss home, but I am used to it. And this year, of all years, is THE year to not travel. Indeed, the grocery store was high preparation -- as it should be during the Coronapocalypse.

What to make for Christmas dinner? Usually we do North American Thanksgiving food, but we just did that at US Thanksgiving. However, we get Bon Appétit magazine, and the last issue of 2020 had a whole special on Kwanzaa! I feel the meaning of Kwanzaa for African Americans in particular, and this year the anti-capitalist aspect resonated with me in particular. The recipes looked amazing, so that's what we did! A bit more than a day of both of us cooking and hallelujah!

Yes, I made an effort. Thanks for noticing.

These are leek latkes - nope not actually part of the magazine's Kwanzaa dinner, but delicious! The Tzatziki was nice and spicy with garlic, and we do love dill....

Corn and crab beignets with Yaji (Suya spice) aioli. Just as delicious as it sounds. That Yaji spice is amazing on vegetables, curries, fish, you name it. We still have some, and I am OK with that. 

Some of the best beets I have ever had. Roasted beets with dukkah spice and sage. Again, that spice mix is delicious and I'm not sure it's not a controlled substance...

Roasted carrots with ayib (Ethiopian soft cheese) and awaze spice vinaigrette. That vinaigrette, people... I ate it with a spoon and have no regrets.

The recipe was beef rib tips or something, but we did it with venison tenderloin. We marinated it in a piri-piri marinade, sous vide cooked it, and then piri-piri sauce to top it off. Later, we put the suace on fried chicken and that was pretty good, too, but this, folks, was the BOMB.  

Aerial photo. Note the oils and extra spice mixes in little bowls. 

Gratuitous holiday pic with a hand made cross-stitch tablecloth and Moomin "pingelverk."

We loved these recipes so much, we went and bought the cookbook all recipes in the magazine we made, except the latkes, are from:

I am currently reading it out loud to the Fuzzband, and we have made more amazing things from it, like the best chess pie ever (in my opinion) and yummy chicken liver paté. The cookbook is divided into sections that have an introduction to various aspects of Black foodways in the USA, like the Great Migration, heritage, and trendsetting Black cooks right NOW. African American food is American food and has influenced American food in ways that has been obscured from history. Well, says Samuelsson -- an Ethiopian-Swedish-American food visionary -- no more! The recipes are dedicated to movers and shakers in the Black food world -- mostly African American, but also other Black folks - and there are short bios to introduce the reader to their work, history, contribution, experiences, and awesome. It is a lovely read and we are learning so much! I am also running out of bookmarks to flag all the dishes we want to make, but that is a good thing! 

 

What to do with lots of squash? Part 1.

We love delicata squash! So, now that we live in a house (the landlord said we can do anything we want with the yard), we decided to plant some. We put them in a plot behind the cedar trees. However, only a few of the seeds in the package are actually delicata - most are butternut squash. We love butternut as well, so we are only slightly disappointed. Over the summer the plants have grown, and above you see how they are growing up over the cedars and around the cedars.  It is hard to capture in a photograph, but it is pretty awesome.

The first butternut squash was emergency harvested as a deer had nibbled on it. Here is a picture of it from its non-nibbled on side, along with (left to right) everclear being infused with a mint variety nicely called "julep" (I'm looking at you TMV and LH!), everclear infusion based on Samovar Blend tea (KT, this one is for you!), and my felted teacosy. The beer in the background is leftovers from a departmental pot-luck (more on that later. Maybe). When I cut into the squash a few days later, it smelled more fragrant and delicious than any butternut squash I have ever purchased.

One day a week or so ago the Fuzzband - although I think we decided to call him Benevolent Overlord after Doug Berman, who is titled thus on Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! (The best radio show in the 'verse!)... So, Benevolent Overlord declared we need to find at least ten butternut squash recipes. Well, I did. I went through our cookbooks, because I am a cookbook person. We have a pretty exciting lineup of butternut squash and pumpkin recipes!

Here is recipe #1 (complete with an attempt at food photography):

This is perhaps my favorite cook book: 400 Best-Ever Soups,
edited by Anne Sheasby (Hermes House, 2008). The recipe is on p. 150.

Squash Soup with Horseradish Cream

Ingredients:
1 butternut squash
1 cooking apple
2 Tblsp butter
1 onion, finely chopped
1-2 tsp curry powder - I used hot + extra for garnish
900 ml / 3 3/4 cup vegetable stock
1 tsp chopped fresh sage - I used dry
150 ml / 2/3 cup apple juice
lime rind, shredded, to garnish - I did not use this
salt and black pepper

Horseradish cream:
4 Tbsp heavy whipping cream
2 tsp horseradish sauce - I used freshly grated
1/2 tsp curry powder - again, I used hot

1. Peel squash, remove seeds, chop the flesh. Peel, core, and chop apple
2. Heat the butter in a large pan. Add the onions and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes until soft. Stir in the curry powder. Cook to bring out the flavor, stirring constantly for 2 minutes.
3. Add the stock, squash, apple, and sage. Bring to boil, lower the heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes until the squash and apple are soft. 
4. Meanwhile, make the horseradish sauce: whip the cream until stiff, add the horseradish and curry. Refrigerate until ready to serve on soup.
5. Puree the soup. Return to pot and add apple juice. Season to taste. Reheat gently, without bringing to boil.
6. Serve the soup  in bowls topped with a spoonful of the horseradish sauce and a dusting of curry powder. Garnish with shredded lime rind, if you like.

Tadaa:

It was delicious! Seriously. And it was even better the next day. While "best ever" is an absolute I don't like to put in writing outside hyperbole on Facebook, this book sure does live up to its name. Benevolent Overlord said it was the best squash soup he has had - and we've had some darn fine ones. I would rate it at a solid 8 out of 10, Benevolent Overlord at 9/9.5! Regardless, we are remembering this one.

If you try this, I would love to hear how yours turns out, how you modified the recipe, etc.

While my food photography is crappy, to say the least, here is one more shot:

P.S. The drink shown above is actually worth a note in and of itself. It is a mudslide with banana... (Ooo! The webpage has some other promising recipes, too!)We made our own creamed whiskey for the mudslide, since we had the ingredients for it, and did not want to go out and buy Bailey's, the most famous creamed whiskey and staple in home-bars as well as commercial bars. I have to say, the home made turned out more to our palette than then purchased version. What is left of the creamed whiskey now stored in an old everclear bottle in the fridge waiting for further adventures.

Going Roman with MissKnitter and Fuzzband

New Haven has farmers' markets. The philosophy is local, organic, community, connecting, etc. I do like the idea, but the practical side leaves something to be desired... It is sort of a local farmers bring their products to sell to the urbanized trendy. As the Fuzzband and I discussed, there is a certain lack of congruence in the  sellers and the customers. Trying to make a livelihood and ostentatious consumption meet. There is also something about being yelled at twice in the first ten minutes at the market that tends to put me off... But whatever. We went last Saturday to check out the beets, but ended up buyin rhubarb and zucchini flowers. Zucchini flowers! Fiori di zucca! Yay! I loved these stuffed with ricotta and fish when I lived in Rome. Yummy! So we bought ten (for $2) to try to recreate my culinary memories from 2000-2001. Very exciting!

Yesterday evening the Fuzzband and I went over to my friend MissKnitter's place, so I brought the zucchini flowers and a filling I concocted from memory, and a couple of recipes from the internets. The Fuzzband flipped a coin, and so we did baked instead of fried fiori di zucca.

Preheat oven to 350-400 F (175-200 C)

2/3-1 cup ricotta
a few good spoonfulls of parmesan
parsley
1 egg yolk
1 hand sized fillet of fish baked and flaked
salt
pepper
zucchini flowers

Mix all the ingredients for the filling. It can be refrigerated for a while prior to filling. Pry the flowers open, and fill with a few teaspoons of the filling. Fold the petals around the filling and place on a lightly greased or baking paper clad baking sheet in a vague hope that the filling will not explode the petals open, spraying your friend's oven... Bake for ca 10-15 minutes until the filling is hot and the flowers are even more golden than they were prior to insertion into oven.

I have not figured out how to rotate images from my smartphone in a way that maintains the selected rotation in the blog. Irritating. 

We also discovered that once they have been baked and cooled down, they could be reheated! Good to know for potential party contributions.

MissKnitter made a delicious linguine and clam sauce dish for the main course. The recipe was sort of following a recipe from the internets. It turned out ridiculously good! 

MissKnitter also had a salad based on self-construction. As I am allergic to a lot of salad stuff, she gave us greens, chopped green bell peppers, chopped jalapenos, blueberries, blackberries, olives, and a vinaigrette to freely mix and match. Oh, and for appetizers she had antipasti and olives. Dessert was raspberry sherbet the Fuzzband picked up when he ran to the store to pick up some portobellos. Delicious meal all around! And of course the relaxed company was a big part of it all. As visiting guest stars we had Honey Dog and the cat Whiskey. Scampi the cat was busy guarding MissKnitter's yarn stash in the office, but we paid our respects to her anyway. 

Oh, and we bought beets elsewhere: more on those another time...

Asian Tapas

Food is a wonderful thing. Friends are a wonderful thing! Food and friends combined is one of my favorite pastimes. Last March, two lovely friends, let us call them H and S, came to New Haven for some cooking and hanging out. When briefly in DC, I browsed S's cookbooks, and one is a book on Asian Tapas. I am unable to find the book on Amazon, so memory will have to suffice. We picked a bunch of recipes to make together, and I brought the book with me to New Haven.

H and I spent Saturday morning at a local high school as Connecticut History Day Regional judges. Meanwhile, S arrived on a train from DC, and the Fuzzband picked him up for some grocery shopping and hanging out. We went to Swagat, our favorite Indian restaurant in the Have area, making sure we had leftovers! Once back home we set to work cooking amazing Asian tapas from our list!

Coriander ginger shrimp with sweet Thai chili sauce.
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Tender punjabi chicken kebabs with mint sauce.
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Crisp asparagus rolls with cheese and xo sauce.
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Tropical shrimp salad (at left) and scallop ceviche with xo sauce.
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Coconut pannacotta with lavender jelly, mangosteen, meringue, and melted chocolate.
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In case you did not see the amazing layering of the pannacotta and the jelly in the previous shot... Xo sauce and meringue in the background...
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So yummy, and so nice to hang out with friends we don't see too much of: S lives in DC, and H in Wooster, Mass. Next time we see them for S's graduation! His folks are coming from Australia, and we are hosting a 5 o'clock tea with baked goods!