Happy Anniversary, My Sweet

Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Secret Holiday Project: Complete

Now that it has been opened, here is the cryptic mystery gift that I've been working on: A painting smock for Polyhymnia.


Polyhymnia is artistic and, in particular, quite talented with watercolors. Hopefully this smock, with it's geishas in artistic pursuits, will help keep her creative juices flowing and her paints from flowing onto her clothing.

Merry Christmas from Five Muses

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Twas the Night before Christmas...

And all thru the Kitchen,
The aroma from the oven,
Smelled finger-lickin'

Or not. Sadly, last night the oven threw a tempter tantrum and stopped working. Again. Thankfully, it did not stop us from completing our Santa's Kitchen project.

Here it is: our gift of peanut brittle, truffles, caramels, spiced nuts, peppermint bark(on top) and limoncello.




Season's Eatings!

Santa's Kitchen: Molten chocolate

Today Santa's Kitchen focused on chocolate confections. First, we made peppermint bark, which is very easy but incredibly tasty.


Basically, you melt dark chocolate and spread it onto a sheet pan in a thin layer and let it cool. When it has solidified, melt an equal amount of white chocolate, add some peppermint extract and spread it out on top of the dark layer. Then sprinkle broken pieces of candy cane or other mint on top. I was in charge of melting the chocolate. Phineas was in charge of hacking the peppermints to bits.

Next, we made truffles, a more complex operation. First you make a ganache (dark chocolate and cream) and let it cool until firm. Then you form your truffles and freeze them for about 15 minutes until they are solid. After that, you give them a bath in melted chocolate and toss them into cocoa. Voila! Truffles.

Feast of Seven Fishes

Orpheus was the official photographer at the Feast of Seven Fishes on Saturday, which meant lots of pictures of people and pets, and none of the actual feast. Oh well. However, the ravioli was a big hit (no leftovers), and everyone had a good time.

Polyhymnia, Calliope and Terpischore

Me and Linus

Uncle Phineas

Magenta, DugDug, Me and Orpheus with the beagle pack, Jerry and Casey

Another new recipe that was a success was the spicy parmesan cheese straws from the blog of Eric Ripert, exec chef at Le Bernardin. They were excellent!

Before being popped in the oven.

After

Nuts in Santa's Kitchen: Take Two

I'm having a real crisis of confidence in the spiced nut department. On Wednesday night, I made another batch, this time using a recipe by Emeril, which I thought would be a little more main-stream than my spicy version. The only change I made was to replace the cumin with more cinnamon.

I am going to have some victims - I mean, testers - try the nuts out over the weekend. I definitely don't like them as much as the spicy ones. So, we'll see.

If this batch doesn't work out (and even if it does), I am planning on trying the recipe Mar-Mar posted to my comments. Maybe I will find a recipe that pleases all pallets.