Votive candles are inexpensive and make a table and (obviously most importantly) you and your guests look gorgeous. Combine them with simple flowers either in bud vases or in clusters of the same flower, and you will have spent under $50 for table decor that you can throw together in a few minutes. Love it!
We follow the scientific method around here at BB&B – yeah that’s right – so I’m making two different pie crust recipes for a true taste test comparison.
It’s pie crust, people. Flour, butter and water. I refuse to believe this can really be that hard.
Martha Stewart, Smitten Kitchen and Simply Recipes all have the same recipe: a classic pate brisee. It seems to be the classic all-butter crust, and because I don’t want to use shortening (all-butter crusts just taste so much better and plus I feel like they have more pure ingredients, somehow) I’m going to test it.
I’m also going make essentially the same recipe, but with a touch of vanilla extract added to the water for flavor and with kosher salt rather than table and a lot of it. The vanilla could just end up making the flavor really weird, but I feel like if it’s just barely added, it might bring out the flavor of the butter. We’ll see if I’m right….
Side Note: Cooks Illustrated has essentially the same recipe as those above, but mixes the unusual ingredient of sour cream into the water. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Furthermore, their explanation says it was difficult to work with by hand, so they switched to the food processor. I’m so curious about the sour cream that I might have to try it anyway!
The cold swooped into Jackson Hole today, as it did in most of the country, and because I’ve been bundled up and inside I’ve been imagining a party that is springy, girly, happy and filled with joy – i.e., PINK!
Now, I’m not really a pink kind of girl. I rarely use the color and even more rarely wear it, but in the right situation and with the exact right shade of pink, it works for me. And it works even better in the dead of cold, hideous winter when everyone wants some warmth and friendliness in their life. This shade of perfectly pale pink gives winter some color without being garishly too much.
The pinks, gold, touches of glass green and a little cheery yellow/orange make me so happy!
I would use this color scheme for a girls luncheon, a baby shower, or for a more uncommon gathering, an afternoon tea for absolutely no good reason at all. Wouldn’t it be lovely to cover the table in a very pale pink tablecloth and gold candlesticks, then use a few tiny bud vases filled with kosher salt to hold up lollipops and name cards (or if you’re really ambitious, as in the inspiration board: cupcake pops)? I’d add just a few touches of green or blue glass vases or water glasses for some pop against the pink, et voila – you’re done. Nothing to it.
Add some friends, an assortment of tea sandwiches and champagne with a raspberry at the bottom of the glass, and it’ll be a lovely party.
From the Atlantic, a Hot Buttered Mix for Rum or Bourbon that sounds sinfully delicious.
Unless you’re really into having daily hot buttered drinks, this obviously makes a huge amount and would probably be too much to make for personal use, but it would be perfect for a wintery party.
Serve with pretty cinnamon sticks that double as stirrers, and maybe whipped cream if you want to get really fancy with a little sprinkling of nutmeg on top.
www.sonyasfamilyrecipes.com
Hot Buttered Mix for Rum or Bourbon from The Atlantic:
Melt all of the ingredients in a large pot over medium heat. The brown sugar should be completely melted (takes about 15 minutes). Stir well and let cool. Put in plastic containers and freeze.
Instructions to go with your mix: in a glass coffee mug pour 1 jigger of rum or bourbon and 2 Tablespoons of butter mix. Top with boiling water and serve.
At our Christmas dinner, Joan made Chicken Marbella from the Silver Palate cookbook, which was so good I begged her to let me take a photo and put it up on BB&B!. She agreed, and pointed out how easy it is to make for a dinner party because it can bake while you do everything else. My favorite kind of main dish :)
Her only modifications from the recipe are to use bone-in breasts or thighs with skin rather than a whole chicken, so that each person can just take one rather than having to carve at the table – a genius ease-of-dinner-party tip – and she doubles the olives and the prunes. The recipe link is below. Enjoy!
I have a strong feeling this is going to be a good year. I feel it. I wish the best for each of you with a fresh start and renewed energy, and I look forward to sharing many gorgeous and yummy things with all of you here in the next year.
www.goodhousekeeping.com
Epicurous has a lovely description of lucky foods from around the world to usher in a most lucky 2010 – and Nancy, my step-grandma, cooked the Southern ones here: collard greens for lots of greenbacks and black-eyed peas for pocket change, she said! I took hasty photos with my iphone and then lost it the next day in I’m not sure which snowboarding tumble in roughly three feet of heavy powder. So no photos from me, and I have to go buy a new phone today.
I’m a midwesterner – now New Yorker – and have absolutely no instincts in my blood for real down home cooking, so it’s all new to me. When Nancy made these dishes last year, I found out that traditionally you cook collard greens with ham hock! I never knew there were dishes with meat in them that didn’t specify that there was, in fact, meat in them. My poor little non-ham-eating heart was shocked. So she substituted chicken broth for the ham for my sister and I and it may not have been strictly traditional, but it was damn good. This year, she actually started three days before, when she cooked the collard greens and then set them in a ziploc bag in the garage to keep cool and steep. Two days before, she put the black-eyed peas in a huge bowl of water to soak, and then the day of she made grits. You could make them with veggie broth just as well, for a nice vegetarian meal.
You could make this lucky New Years meal anytime during the year – nothing wrong with a little luck in April or August, presented with full New Years flair of gold and silver all over the place. Anytime you need a fresh start and a little favor with the gods, it would make a great dinner party and would be so happily different from the usual holidays at the usual times. Give everyone New Years hats and noisemakers, and celebrate each person’s rebirth in whatever way they want! It could be a lovely addition to a happiness group or to cheer someone up.
On Christmas Day, we went over to our family friends’ house for dinner and Joan introduced my sister and I to single malt Scotch Whisky. I’m into bourbon, as everyone knows by the name of my website, but for some reason I have never tried a good Scotch until now. It seems exotic and like you have to have many leather-bound books and an apartment that smells of rich mahogany to order a good Scotch, and I’m easily intimidated I guess.
But Joan had two bottles sitting in her friendly kitchen: a Macallan, which was smooth and lovely, and a Laphroaig, which smelled like a peat bog but tasted heavenly. (Actually, I only know that it smelled like a peat bog because Joan said it did, but what I do know is that it smells something awful – or, to put it in a more refined vernacular for lovers of Scotch, a very very very acquired taste.) After tasting and comparing small glasses of both, we thought it would be a good idea to taste some more for an even better comparison, and after continuing the testing with our third glass we were both passionately converted to Scotch drinkers and were only stopped by the call to dinner and a nice glass of red wine. It was a lovely Christmas.
Now I have to learn something about Scotch so I can buy and order it intelligently, and maybe even pair it with the right appetizers for a dinner party. Any hints?
