Cooking with Betty Crackpot: Scalloped Potatoes

This is my first time making scalloped potatoes, which is kind of pathetic at my age. I love this classic side dish, but for some reason it always seemed like too much for one person. Now that I live with two other people, maybe I'll make them more often. I decided to make them for tonight's Easter dinner, which was not ham. My roommate sprung for gigantic T-bone steaks, which we had with roasted asparagus and a decadent flourless chocolate cake that I'll get to in a future post.

Betty has two scalloped potato recipes, this one and a creamy version, for which you make a white sauce. This one below seemed simpler to make and it's what I recall my mom making. Mom used to, I believe, slice the potatoes in a food processor. I did mine by hand, and I also didn't peel the potatoes first since I like the peels and that's where most of the nutrients are.

Scalloped Potatoes, Betty Crocker's Cookbook, page 435

2 lbs potatoes (about 6 medium)
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
3 tbsp flour
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 cup butter or margarine
2 1/2 cups milk

Heat oven to 350F. Wash potatoes; pare thinly and remove eyes. Cut potatoes into thin slices to measure about 4 cups.

In greased 2 quart casserole, arrange potatoes in 4 layers, sprinkling each of the first 3 layers with 1 tbsp onion, 1 tbsp flour, 1/4 tsp salt, dash pepper, and dotting each with 1 tbsp of butter. Sprinkle top with remaining onion, salt and pepper, and dot with remaining butter. Heat milk to just scalding; pour over potatoes. Cover; bake 30 minutes. Uncover; bake 60 to 70 minutes longer or until potatoes are tender. let stand 5 - 10 minutes before serving. 4 - 6 servings.


I also didn't finely chop any onion; rather, I did it my mom's way and finely sliced a whole small onion and added it to the layers of potato. I didn't get 4 layers out of mine, but only 3, probably because I used a slightly smaller casserole dish than what was called for. Also, I specially went and bought homo milk (3.25%) for this recipe as I was pretty sure my usual 1% wouldn't work so well.


I baked the dish on a cookie sheet lined with one of my silicone baking mats, and that was a good call because there was some overflow during the baking process. The top layer of potatoes got a little dry & crisp, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

The verdict: delicious and successful! I will definitely make this again because it was really good. I don't know why I put this off as long as I did!

Hashbrown Casserole

C often refers to these as "Funeral Potatoes" because she remembers them being made for funerals. This is a big, hearty casserole that has ingredients in it that might give you a heart attack upon reading. But it's sooooooooo good. This was one of the dishes we made for the lunch banquet we catered last month. It was a huge hit. I'd definitely make this at home. We made a huge batch that filled four chafing dishes.

Hashbrown Casserole

For the casserole:
1 package hashbrowns (the bags were big...2lbs maybe? I don't remember)
2 cups sour cream
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
1/4 cup chopped green onion

Topping:
2 cups crushed cornflakes
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

Combine all the casserole ingredients well and spoon into a 9x13" casserole dish that has been well-greased. For the topping, combine cornflakes and cheese and sprinkle on the top. Bake at 350F until piping hot in the middle - about 40 or so minutes.

I am actually craving this right now...

My Boss's Goulash

I am blessed with some excellent bosses at the Telegraph, and one of them (that I know of) happens to also be a pretty good cook, if what he brought to our Christmas party is any indication. We had our Xmas shindig at the local cross country ski...place...(it's not really a hill...) where there is a big cabin groups can book for events. There was a big wood stove and an outhouse, and that night we got a huge dump of snow, so the kids were happy (and some adults, too, though I was not one of them). Everyone brought something for dinner; I brought a cake for dessert, Boss A brought sangria and mulled cider, Boss D's wife made homemade bread, which she makes professionally at a local coffee shop; and Boss AB brought Hungarian Goulash and some egg noodles. The picture above is of that meal, served on fancy paper plates!

I have always enjoyed goulash, and indeed my next article in Bread 'n Molasses Magazine will be about the goulash I enjoyed as a kid, made by my mom. That recipe, however, came from an old edition of Betty Crackpot's (AKA Crocker) definitive cookbook and is a highly Americanized version of the traditional Hungarian dish. AB's is different, and it was so good when we chowed down on it at the ski cabin in the middle of a snowstorm. During a my recent big batch freezing spree, I asked AB for his recipe so I could make a crock pot full of it to freeze, and he very nicely shared the recipe with me.

I quote:

Fry up stew meat and onions in quite a lot of butter until browned on the outside. Then I put enough cans of pureed tomatoes in the crock pot with the meat that it looks 'stewy'. Then I cook it for a whole day, adding some salt and a fair bit of paprika (I like the smoked). I'll add carrots and mushrooms, though some say this is a sin! I may even splash in some hot sauce to bring it up to the level of tangy-ness I like. Finally, if it feels too watery I'll add some cornstarch to thicken it a little. Oh, I also put garlic in because I put garlic in almost everything.

So, using this as a template, I got a family pack of stewing meat at Safeway that was about 1.2kg in weight. I had most of a bottle of passata left over from the quinoa salad recipe, so I dumped that in, along with a partial can of leftover diced tomatoes from the borscht I made last week. I have two kinds of paprika on hand, Spanish and Hungarian. I used a few tablespoons of both. After letting the goulash cook on high for several hours in the crock pot, I added some Worcestershire sauce to make it a bit tangy, but when I tasted the broth, I found it lacking. It needed something to cut the acidity of the tomatoes, so I added a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar.

It was fantabulous. Not as fantabulous as AB's, but fantabulous enough for me. I may not even freeze any; I might just spend a week eating this. For the initial meal I had, I served the goulash with what my mom used to serve her goulash with, Noodles Romanoff. A sinful side dish indeed - but wonderful, and nostalgic. It was perfect!


Awesomeness!

Herb Muffins

The menu is changing at work because the seniors are getting bored and, quite frankly, so are us cooks. A whole bunch of new recipes are being tried out, and this one for herb muffins is one of them. Last night, I served these with beef stew, and judging by the lack of muffins coming back & getting chucked, it seemed like a success. Some seniors even wanted more, but I only had enough for one each. After sampling one myself, however, I don't think they are exactly my cup of tea. They were a bit too sweet. But that's just me. If anyone out there makes these, let me know what you think!

I made these pretty small, almost a mini muffin, and I got 39.

Herb Muffins

Dry Mixture:

4.5 cups flour
1.5 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 cup sugar
10.5 tsp baking powder
1.5 tsp salt
6 tbsp fresh basil, chopped (3 tbsp dried)
6 tbsp fresh parsley (3 tbsp dried)

Wet Mixture:

3 eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3 cups milk

You know the drill: mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl; combine wet ingredients in a medium bowl. Add wet to dry. Combine. Scoop.

Bake at 400F for 25 - 30 minutes, or until done.

Az's Marinated Potatoes

I just wanted to give a shout-out to my friend Azahar, who has a great food blog, Azahar's Kitchen. Recently, she posted a great recipe for marinated potatoes that I made for some company I had over for the wedding craziness. This recipe rocked and it was a huge hit! I couldn't find the sherry vinegar, so I substituted it with apple cider vinegar and it worked out very well. I also used red-skinned nugget potatoes - my favourite! I am still on the hunt for some oak-aged sherry vinegar and I have one more place to check (that would be LOGS, so keep your fingers crossed that if they do actually have it it won't cost me $3289+++).

This dish was a really refreshing change from your typical potato salad, so I will for sure keep this recipe around!

Recipe here.

Thanks, Az!

Solstice Dinner, Part 2, and Christmas Eve Dinner

I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays this fine Boxing Day morning, and that you are all not too hung over from last night's festivities! I am just relieved this trying time in my life is over and that life can now return to normal.

Which includes posting here!

Let me just briefly finish my round-up of the Solstice meal I served on Monday (though the dessert will be Monday's Magazine Monday post so, really, I'm only covering the side dishes right now).

So, in addition to the sausage-stuff, bacon-latticed pork loin roast I served, I made three sides.

One was very simple, and that was steamed yellow beans from my garden, which I took the time to blanch and freeze immediately after picking in August. I was a little concerned about how they would turn out because when I removed them from the freezer, they looked odd...Not freezer burnt, but kind of translucent and splotchy. But, they steamed up just fine and were great!

I also made the same Brussels sprouts recipe I used last year. You can see that here. Really simple dish, even if slicing all the sprouts is a pain in the ass. Instead of the pine nuts, though, I used some of the pecans that came in the package from Jodi, and let me tell you, they totally elevated this dish to a new level! And once again, when I added these to the heat of the pan, they had an out-of-this-world aroma! Brilliant!
And then, finally, everyone's favourite, the Caramelized Onion & Brie Bread Pudding. Again, this was a smashing hit. I think a lot of people get potatoed-out over the holidays, and this is a great idea for a starch in your meal. In addition to using brie, and party because of the exorbitant cost of brie in these parts, I had a bunch of mozzarella left over from the pork loin, so I cubed it up and put it in, too. It was awesome and everyone was really happy with it.

So, apart from dessert, which as I said I'll post about on Monday, that's a wrap for Solstice 2009!
Now, onto Christmas Eve, which happens to be my father's birthday. We always have a big family get-together for this and my SIL does most of the cooking. Usually, Dad gets his favourite, steak & kidney pie, which is quite disgusting. This year, though, Shan decided to make another of Dad's perennial favourites, Beef Wellington.

But before we get to the main course, let's talk about the appies! Because we always have appies! First of all, Shan's aunt brought some West Coast prawns her brother had caught himself over the summer. These were to die for! There is absolutely no comparison between these prawns and the ones you buy frozen at the grocery store. They taste way richer, for one thing, and they have a much more tender texture and a more subtle colour. In the dish Shan's aunt brought, she paired the prawns with a sour cream mixture, cocktail sauce, and then topped with the prawns. We ate this with crackers and it was so good! Shan's aunt also makes a wonderful crab dip that has sambal olek in it. It was gone very quickly, I can tell you that. And finally, because my dad doesn't touch seafood with a 10-foot pole, Shan made him some stuffed mushroom cups, which were also excellent.
So, if you don't know what Beef Wellington is, basically, it's fillet mignon wrapped in puff pastry with shallots & mushrooms. Shan added gorgonzola this time, though not for me as I cannot stand moldy cheese. She did an outstanding job and everyone in attendance was thrilled to bits.For side dishes, we had steamed asparagus and green beans, salad, roasted butternut squash, and a risotto made with aged Asiago cheese.
This was a meal you'd pay a lot of money for in a restaurant, let me tell you! It was incredibly impressive. Thanks to Shan for all your hard work!

And yes, there was dessert. But that deserves a post of it's own, so you'll have to be patient with me!

Cooking with Kylie: Stir-Fried Asparagus with Baby Corn

I haven't made anything with Kylie's book Simple Chinese Cooking in a little while, but I am back on the bandwagon! This time, I made a simple stir-fried side dish that was really quick and delicious. Now, obviously, asparagus is not in season here in my little corner of the world, but I have to say that the LOGS has been carrying asparagus from Peru that has been a very decent price, like $2.99/lb, and it has been very tempting. So, I caved. And actually, the asparagus was very good. I always have mini corn cobs on hand for stir fries and snacking - I love these things!

I made half a recipe and had enough for two meals, but I made the regular amount of sauce because I didn't want to deal with the 1/3 cup of chicken stock the original recipe calls for. I never have small amounts of stock around like that, and I have no intention of starting to keep ice cube trays of stock in my freezer because I simply don't have the space or the inclination. The sauce was yummy, so I have no regrets! I also skipped the green onions.

Stir-fried Asparagus with Baby Corn (page 205 of Simple Chinese Cooking), adapted by yours truly

1 bunch asparagus
1 tbsp safflower oil
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 can baby corn, drained and sliced in half lengthwise
2 tbsp sake
2 tsp oyster sauce
2 tsp malt vinegar
1 tsp white sugar
1/4 tsp sesame oil

Wash & trim asparagus, discarding woody ends.

Heat oil in wok until surface seems to shimmer slightly. Add garlic and stir-fry for 10 seconds. Add asparagus and corn and stir-fry for about 1 minute. Add sauce ingredients and stir fry for a about three minutes, or until asparagus is bright green and tender-crisp. Serve immediately.

Awesome! I really enjoyed this, and plan to make another version of it tonight, incorporating chicken into it as well as some water chestnuts. I loved the sauce, too; it's light, like a vinaigrette, almost. Another fabulicious Kylie recipe!

Dad's Roast Beast & My Yorkshire Puddings

My dad had my brother and me over for dinner the other night. We all know I have a ton of chicken carcasses hanging around my freezer, right? Well, my dad seems to collect roasts of turkey and bison instead. It must be in our blood or something! He is always complaining about his lack of freezer space because he has so many roasts! In order to help him out a bit, Jem (my brother) and I went up for dinner when my SIL was out of town on a road trip.

My dad cooks his bison roasts in a rich gravy made with tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, and some red wine. It's usually very delicious, and Dad makes all the fixings, too, including roasted potatoes and veggies. For this particular meal, he asked me if I could make some Yorkshire Puddings to go with the roast beast. My mom was the Yorkshire Pudding queen when we were growing up. We had it all the time. But, to be honest, I'd never made it myself before Dad's request. I found a recipe in my copy of The Essential Baking Cookbook.

Yorkshire Puddings (makes 6), adapted slightly by me

3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
2 eggs
3 tsp vegetable oil

1. In a bowl, whisk flour & salt. Make a well in the centre and whisk in the milk. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs until nice & creamy & pale. Add to the batter & mix well. Add water & whisk until large bubbles form. Cover & refrigerate for an hour.

2. Preheat oven to 425F. Pour 1/2 tsp vegetable oil in each of 6 holes of a muffin pan. Heat the pan in the oven for a few minutes, until the oil is smoking. Beat the batter again and pour into each hole, filling about 3/4 full.3. Bake for 20 minutes, then reduce the oven to 350F and bake a further 10 minutes, until golden & puffed up. Serve immediately!Nice, eh? Here are my little puddings with my dad's lovely gravy:YUM!

Thanksgiving Dinner - Again!

Tonight was my second Thanksgiving dinner of the week, as most of my family was away last weekend for our holiday last weekend. My SIL Shan had a 15lb turkey for 6 people so there were a ton of leftovers. As usual, this was a spectacular feast as only Shan can put on. On the menu:

• turkey
• stuffing
• mashed potatoes
• green beans & carrots sauteed in garlic, olive oil, and lemon
• Brussels sprouts
• spaghetti squash gratin, made by your favourite coyote
• gravy, cranberry sauce, buns
• no-bake pumpkin pie, also made by your favourite coyote
  

I did promise you recipes from this meal, did I not? Well, here is the spaghetti squash gratin recipe I used, that I totally made up on my own, using squash I grew in my garden this year. The squash were very, very small, fitting in the palm of my hand, but they tasted pretty good. I love spaghetti squash - it's the only squash I'll eat other than zucchini. Usually I just bake it and mix it with some butter, but I wanted to do something different with it (I have, actually, used spaghetti squash in place of pasta at times, and that's a great idea; it's a very versatile veggie). I got some very cheap ricotta cheese on my last cross-border shopping spree, and off I went!

Spaghetti Squash Gratin

• 2 1/2 cups roasted spaghetti squash (this turned out to be three of my smallest squashes)
• 1 cup low-fat ricotta cheese
• salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 cup butter
• 2/3 cup fine bread crumbs
• 3 cloves garlic, grated
• 1 cup grated cheddar cheese

1. Combine squash, ricotta, seasonings, and Parmesan cheese in a large bowl. Place in a medium-sized, well-greased or parchment-lined casserole dish. Top with cheddar
2. In a skillet, melt butter until bubbly. Add breadcrumbs and garlic, and season with a little salt & pepper. Toast until the bread crumbs are toasty & golden.
3. Put breadcrumbs on top of casserole. Bake casserole at 375F until hot through & cheese has all melted.

This was a hit! It was great and everyone enjoyed it! I will definitely make this again!

Next post - the pumpkin pie. But let me rest a bit first, eh?

Corn with Feta Butter

Sometimes the simplest things are the very best, eh? Take for instance this little side dish recipe that came from the August issue of Gourmet.

I love corn on the cob and often bemoan the fact that I don't live near any decent source of local corn on the cob. The corn down east was awesome! You could buy right off the side of the farm it grew on, picked that day. Peaches & cream was my favourite. If you couldn't go out into the countryside and get it, farmer's markets always had it, too. The best corn I've ever had came from the suburbs around Chicago for like 25 cents a cob.

25 cents a cob? I am not kidding. I got 2 ears of corn for $1.49 at the local overpriced grocery store yesterday. And it wasn't peaches & cream. And it kinda sucked. This is why I very rarely buy corn anymore (the other reason is that it's genetically modified and I'm trying to cut down on my GM foods).

Luckily, this feta butter made up for the suckage. I didn't use mint, but rather picked some cilantro from my garden - a herb I'll take any day over mint.

This was da bomb! And so simple! It was truly a treat, despite the mediocre corn. I had some BBQ salmon with it and it was a great meal. Definitely a keeper recipe.

Family Dinner

Last night I went over to my brother and SIL's place for dinner with my dad. Dad donated a roast of beef that Shan BBQed, and it was fabulous! We also had a variety of other stuff, too.

Here is the roast of beef on the BBQ. Shan made a spice rub for it, and a homemade BBQ sauce. She started the roast off at a higher temperature, then brought the temperature way down to slow roast it.

She also somehow stuffed the beef with whole cloves of garlic - yum!

For an appy, Shan sauteed edamame in garlic, six spice mix, sea salt, and a bit of soy sauce. It was awesome!
Shan makes wicked salads...
And we had some grilled veggies...

There were also some potatoes with fresh dill & sour cream. Here is my dinner...

For dessert, I brought a selection of cookies I've made recently and frozen, including these, these, and these. There was also ice cream with Shan's homemade caramel sauce, which is just to die for!

Awesome dinner, and I came home with a pile of left-over roast beef, so I'm set for sandwiches for a while now!

Magazine Monday #34: Hush Puppies

When I went to Florida five years ago, my friends and I ate at a gated community. Yes - a gated community. I don't know how we wound up there - we were all tourists - but someone recommended the little village within the gated community for lunch as there were a number of small restaurants there in addition to some shopping.

It was creepy, but perhaps that's another story. We chose a small restaurant and sat out on the immaculate patio as a black person walked by picking up non-existent litter. Really - but like I said, that's another story.

The food was good, but I can't remember what I ordered, though I do remember that it came with these things called Hush Puppies. My friend E, whom we were all in Florida to visit with, is originally from the deep south, and I asked her what a Hush Puppy was and she told me. I was intrigued. And when my meal came, I was totally digging the Hush Puppies. They were great!

Fast forward five years and I am still cringing at my gated community experience, and I still remember those Hush Puppies. And lo and behold, Gourmet's February 2009 issue had a recipe! I made them to go with a spectacular burger that will appear in Wednesday's post.

The recipe is here.

Aaaaaahhhhhh...the results were not good.

First of all, I didn't have stone ground cornmeal as specified in the recipe, so my batter wasn't the right texture. And they fell apart in the frying process. They were a complete and utter disappointment.

Perhaps my expectations were too high. Perhaps I needed finer cornmeal. Perhaps I need a new recipe.

Well, they cannot all be keepers can they? That's the whole point of Magazine Mondays - to sift through all those magazine recipes and see which ones are keepers and which ones to pitch. This one is getting pitched.

Zucchini Fries

I was supposed to make these last night to accompany my burger, but as I was about to cut into my zucchini my roommate gently pointed out that it wasn't actually a zucchini but a cucumber. I hate cucumbers and I was ticked. So, after work today I went to the store and acquired a real zucchini. This recipe is from the same issue of Clean Eating Magazine as the burgers from yesterday.

Zucchini Fries

cooking spray
4 small zucchini, trimmed & cut into "fries"
1/4 tsp sea salt
freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp Parmesan cheese, grated finely

1. Preheat oven to 450F. Line a baking sheet with foil and spray with cooking spray.

2. Toss zucchini with salt & pepper. Coat thoroughly.

3. Arrange zucchini on baking sheet in a single layer and roast, tossing half way through cooking, for 18 - 20 minutes, or until tender and lightly browned. Transfer to plate and sprinkle with cheese.

Easy-peasy! And pretty good, I might add, too. I thought this was a cool new way to do zucchini and I think I'll be making this again! Enjoy!

Solstice Feast

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!

Magazine Monday #21: Caramelized Onion & Brie Bread Pudding

Yesterday was Solstice, and, as I mentioned, I made a big meal - the results of which you'll see on this blog upcoming this week. I wanted to to a side dish/starch that was different from potatoes (I'm not the biggest fan), rice, or noodles, and I've been carting this recipe from Canadian Living's November 2005 issue around for ages (for some reason, it's not in the CL online recipe database...). This was the perfect opportunity to use it!

Caramelized Onion & Brie Bread Pudding

2 tbsp butter
3 onions, thinly sliced (I did so in a food processor)
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar or wine vinegar
1 tbsp liquid honey
1 tsp dried thyme
5 cups cubed day old baguette
1 cup diced Brie cheese
6 eggs
1 cup each 10% cream and milk
1/2 tsp each ground nutmeg, salt & pepper

1. In a large skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Fry onions, stirring often, until deep golden brown, about 25 minutes. Stir in vinegar, honey, and thyme.

2. In a large bowl, toss together bread, cheese, and onion mixture. Spoon into shallow, greased 8-cup gratin dish.

3. In a bowl, whisk together eggs, cream, milk, nutmeg, salt & pepper; pour over bread mixture and press. Let stand until liquid is absorbed, about 20 minutes.

4. Bake at 350F until crisp, browned, and knife inserted in centre comes out clean, about 45 minutes.

This was an enormous hit at dinner! Everyone was totally in love with this dish, and I have to say that it was my favourite part of last night's meal. This recipe is a definite keeper!

Next week is the last week I'll be hosting MM, so if you have a recipe, please let me know and I'll put up a link.

Full Flickr set with Solstice meal pictures can be seen here.