Jehosephat, it’s Christmas! II

As Christmas comes hurtling toward us, I’m getting geared up for baking and cooking and baking and cooking. Also, some baking, and then some baking.

I bake sandwich breads and sweet almond bread and cinnamon rolls. I make caramel corn and Chex mix. I make dips and paté and savory jams to take to parties and family gatherings. I make butterscotch sauce with bourbon or brandy. I make brittle (peanut brittle, natch, but last year I also tested out chili-spiced pumpkin seed brittle and a garnet-colored Shiraz and almond brittle) and chocolate-covered almond toffee.

And then there are cookies.

Every year, I envision giving friends and families beautiful platters all kinds of cookies and sweets… and every year, I end up making one giant batch of biscotti and calling it good, and then I daydream about next year, when I’ll surely make chocolate sandwich cookies and jam thumbprints and frosted sugar cookies and shortbread and and and…

If you, like me, dream of a giant platter with a half-dozen kinds of cookies but always run out of time and patience, consider a cookie swap as a way to amass a cache of cookies without all the planning and the work and the cursing oh the cursing. (… or is that just me?)

topsy turvy stuffed squash

Every year, our referral logs show that visitors arrive at macbebekin searching for vegetarian-friendly Thanksgiving dishes. (And sometimes not-so-vegetarian-friendly Thanksgiving searches end up here, too.) Last year, I jotted down some tips and suggestions for a vegetarian-friendly holiday table, and in the same entry I outlined our proposed Thanksgiving menu, which centered around The Fella’s gorgeous roasted butternut squash galettes.

This year, I have one more vegetarian Thanksgiving entree to suggest, and boy howdy, it’s a doozy! Inspired by The Kitchn’s rendition of Dorie Greenspan’s stuffed squash, I whipped up a vegetarian version of my own. You’ll notice that the recipe at the link includes bacon, but don’t get hung up on that: the key here is the technique, not the ingredients.

I’ve never been a fan of baked stuffed squash, which too often comes out of the oven pallid and limp, slumping and drooling its thin juices onto the plate. But this simple, brilliant idea turns that bland, pale stuffed squash on its head — literally. The trick: hollow out the squash and fill it with cheesy, bready, aromatic stuffing…

And then flip it upside-down to bake.

Elsa's topsy turvy stuffed squash

It’s so simple and so obvious: get the stuffing in contact with the pan, let the oven’s heat and the roasting pan’s surface work their alchemy upon the ingredients. Here’s a photo of the squash halves, one still resting in the pan, the other flipped up to show off the crispy underside. As you can see, cooking them face-down results in tender roasted squash with a deeply browned, richly crisped crust over creamy soft stuffing.

The fabulous contrast in textures and flavors makes this a dish you’ll groan over. Our dinnertime last night was a chorus of “OOOOOH”s and “AAAAAAH”s and other, less polite expressions of delight. I urge you, urge you, to try this topsy-turvy stuffed squash soon.

fauxreos

For me, a perfect dessert is a careful contradiction, a balance of textures and tastes, of sweet and salty and an undertone of something tart or bitter.

And sometimes you can hit that balance by happy accident. That’s what happened here. As a finishing touch for our recent Sandwich Party, I tried another blogger’s recipe for chocolate sandwich cookies. The flavors sounded promising, but something in it rang alarm bells for me.

And rightly so. My dough didn’t come together as promised — or at all — so I had to improvise. A little melted butter here, a little extra flour there, and a rest in the fridge did wonders. Thanks to instinct and accident, I ended up with a winner of a recipe, one that I know I’ll make again and again. (And then laziness, inattention, and a power outage delayed my posting. But you have it now, my sweeties, and I have the accidental recipe archived here for many future occasions, so let’s count our blessings.)

I love this cookie. I call them “fauxreos,” but they deliver so much more than an Oreo: more chocolate punch, with a rich, almost bitter undertone, more crispy crunch and creamy lushness. The crispy chocolate wafers are deeply, darkly chocolatey and faintly sweet, with a slightly salty edge that makes them the perfect foil to the rich sweet filling. The assembly process is a bit of a chore, but when you bite into the first cookie, you’ll know it’s worth every moment.

ac & je’s sandwich buffet

As the fifth Sandwich Party drew to a close on Monday night, AC & JE invited some friends over for a Big Sandwich Buffet, and we were lucky enough to be part of it.

Such deliciousness! Spicy chicken tenders, sauvely sauteed portabello mushrooms, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, red onion, two kinds of cheese, pesto, butter, mustard, mayo, and lovely tender-chewy ciabatta to pile everything atop. AND! A bright, fresh salad with apples, almonds, and red onion, and a big casserole of luscious mac & cheese, tangy and tender and surprisingly light. (JE, I’m taking notes; I think of mac & cheese as heavy and creamy, but you may have opened my eyes to another way.)

the Ploobwich

The Bitwrathploob has sampled sandwiches around the world, but that doesn’t mean he turns up his battered red replacement nose at humble homemade fare.

During this weekend’s Sandwich Party, Ploobie and I enjoyed this easy, cozy meal: a hot sandwich of cheddar and tomato on beer bread, served with a brimming bowl of simple black bean soup.

beer bread

Mmmm, beeeeeer bread. This savory quick bread goes together lickety-split. Just mix the dry ingredients, stir in the beer, plop it in the pan with some butter on top, and bake it until it’s crusty and fragrant. So good, so simple, so darned fast!

With all these virtues to recommend it, beer bread shows up on our table often, cozying up to soup or salad or frittata, but this weekend you can expect to see it in a simple (and crumbly!) sandwich for the Sandwich Party.

The recipe from Epicurious makes a very tasty loaf of bread with a heady aroma, but I’ve adapted it slightly. A touch less sugar and butter and a heartier mixture of flours brings out the subtle flavor of wheat along with the tang of beer.

Sandwich Party #5

The Sandwich Party is underway! Friday night, The Fella and I kicked off the weekend with grilled cheddar cheese sandwiches stuffed with garlicky spinach, served with cream of tomato soup.

The sandwich looks a mite sloppy, but I assure you it was just sloppy enough: the gooey cheese held the glistening, gorgeous spinach inside the crispy bread, and the whole thing made a perfect foil for the mild, creamy soup.

Jagosaurus did some work ahead of schedule:

I made some (cucumber and honey goat cheese) sandwiches a couple of weeks ago in anticipation of this, but I might do more this weekend.

Redfox from The Hungry Tiger joined the Sandwich Party with a luscious-looking warm weather entry:

The version you see before you is a little duded up, with those sprigs of cilantro. Occasionally it might instead be topped with a very few slivers of thinly sliced red onion, or slices of tomato. But the basic scheme is:

* Slice of kalamata sourdough bread
* Butter
* Avocado
* A tiny sprinkle of salt
* A drizzle of this here chile oil

In the comments here, T.R. tells us about a sandwich with old friends!

Mmmm. Good! I had tuna steak sandwich w/ red onions, grated carrots and lemon sauce to top it off. I did not get to make it…Hobbit Cafe did where I was having lunch w/ old friends (-:

Erik went with:

a family favorite: The Beltch. My mother, the polite lady that she is, chooses to put the vowel after the L, making it a Bletch (as if that’s a polite sound!). As you might have guessed, it’s a variation on the famous BLT (bacon, lettuce, and tomato), but adding cheese (CH). For proper BELTCH construction, a fried egg should be added to achieve full letter representation, but circumstances did not allow for an egg in this production.

Carlarey has the breakfast of champions!

So here it is, nothing fancy. Just a plain old working class turkey, salami, pastrami sandwich with shredded habanero cheese and jalapenos. It was what my kid wanted for breakfast yesterday morning, and it sounded so good I made one for myself.

Macbebekin’s own Elli had a luscious-looking pita:

I had a chicken pita sandwich. I cheated* and bought it at a shop, but I did get to choose my ingredients which was easy: “All the veggies, please.”

*Elsa’s note: NOT CHEATING! Bought sandwiches welcome!

Just before the power went out, the Bitwrathploob and I enjoyed:

a hot sandwich of cheddar and tomato on beer bread, served with a brimming bowl of simple black bean soup.

J made a lamb ragu-wich capable of changing a mother’s mind:

I discovered one day that if I took some of the sourdough bread that we had, slathered it with butter and garlic powder, and fried it, it made a delicious garlic bread, which is the perfect place to put a bunch of warmed spaghetti sauce. It’s a lot like a sloppy Joe, actually, though I like the flavors of spaghetti sauce better. My mom thought this was a disgusting idea, until she finally gave it a try, and became an instant convert. She always said that sane people are willing to change their mind when they are given the proper evidence, which this sandwich clearly is.

Sounds tempting, doesn’t it? Join the fifth Sandwich Party — you still have time! Around these parts, we had a few hours without power and a looooooong stretch with no wifi, so I’m giving myself (and you!) a little extra leeway to get those last posts and links in. I can’t wait to see what sandwich you make!

magically delicious?

The corner store seems to have mixed up their coffee dispensers again.

Well, I knew that when I bought this bag of beans, which came from a bin marked with two contradictory labels. No, this is more than a mix-up. This is a travesty.

The brew I’m sipping at this moment is not either French Roast or Italian Espresso, as the two labels insisted. I’m not sure what flavor it is, but if I had to guess, it would be…

Lucky Charms.

Sandwich Party: number five

photo courtesy of Jagosaurus

Announcing the fifth (count ‘em, fifth!) Sandwich Party, coming October 8th to October 10th!

…

Yikes. That’s soon!

Jagosaurus and I cordially invite you (yes, YOU, and on short notice, we admit) to the fifth Sandwich Party this weekend! If you want the details, take a gander at the entries in that link, but the idea is:

Make a sandwich. Or buy a sandwich. Or… well, you can’t really borrow a sandwich, can you? And theft is wrong. Don’t steal a sandwich.

… where was I? Right: Sandwich Party. So, you get your sandwich by legitimate means. This weekend, Friday Oct. 8th to Sunday Oct. 10th. you post it somewhere, as a blog entry, a photo on Flickr, a Tumbler page.

Then return here or here and leave us a link to your sandwich. Jagosaurus and I will round up all the participant’s posts and present them here!

Happy sandwiching!

Need some ideas? Of course, there’s plenty of inspiration to be found in previous Sandwich Parties, but if you need fresh notions:

Thrift website Wisebread offers an article on what I can only think of as introductory sandwich-making. I can’t say I find the title appetizing; I don’t need to “sex up” my sandwiches, and I really don’t want you to sex up my sandwiches either.

But I applaud the idea of encouraging budget-conscious readers to make their brown-bag lunches a little more delicious and festive. And surely there are plenty of people who need this elementary instruction: after all, Jagosaurus and I started the Sandwich Party because it was one culinary challenge almost anyone could tackle!

If you are [un]lucky enough to track down a Candwich, please document your experience thoroughly.

If you describe your sandwich tastes as more “conventional,” or shall we say “traditional,” or shall we say “not repulsive,” then The Kitchn can help you out, with a round-up of 22 gorgeous sandwiches from tea sandwiches to bahn mi.

note: Aaaaaaand it’s on!

Domestic vacation

JM and I are currently house sitting and one of the perks is a flourishing garden. I knew that fresh was delicious, but picked-this-morning-and-now-it’s on-my-plate-fresh is incredible! Today we made more tomato soup and tonight it’s another batch of veggies with brown rice. Tomorrow we’ll make some arugula pesto for the soup. And traditional pesto for grins.

I can only hope to leave the owners something good growing when they get back. I’ve read that garlic and onions are good to plant now in Seattle, but if you’re reading this and know of anything else, please leave a comment. Thanks!