Big Girls, Small Kitchen: The Book

EVENT: Cara and Phoebe's Quarter-Life Kitchen Coming Soon to a Bookstore Near You
MENU: Dark Chocolate Cookies with Milk Chocolate Chunks; Chocolate Chip Cookies with Milk and Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

Good news in the oven at BGSK!

No, we have not conceived a love child. Or maybe on second thought, we have conceived something, and maybe it is a love child of sorts. It's not a little girl though (that's Helena, daughter of Rebecca, who's enabling our first catering gig). What it is: a book! It's been a year-long process, with a lot of help in the kitchen to take the project from blog to book, and so since we got the deal, we've been baking. A lot.

We baked for Heather, our delightful agent at ICM.

We baked for Katie, our energetic editor at HarperStudio, our imprint at Harper Collins.

And we baked for you guys, the readers, although we guess you didn't know yet what we were celebrating when we enlisted you to tell us about your favorite cookies. Somewhere deep down, we must just have wanted to keep our apartments smelling like freshly baked goods so our glee didn't run out. But more importantly, we baked for you because we're grateful beyond grateful for your enthusiasm, comments, and suggestions throughout the last year.

Just like BGSK and books, milk chocolate and dark chocolate are so good in conjunction that it's best to combine them whenever possible. That's why for the two recipes below--one sent to Heather and one delivered to Katie--we mixed chocolate in two different ways, showcasing its more resonant semi-sweet side against its toothsome, rich milk chocolate-y aspect.

In fact, the cookies Katie received are quite similar to the ones her boss got to try the day we went in for our meeting at Harper. We'd actually brought a cookie for Heather, pre-meeting, but then she suggested we give it to Bob, HarperStudio's publisher, instead. We piled into his office--three of us and four of them--and then we offered this one tiny (but delicious) cookie to one-seventh of the population in the room. It was a little awkward. Bob took a bite and smiled. Apparently, it did the trick.

Anyway, we'll be developing the book, a cookbook-cum-memoir, out of the blog and the cooking and living we've done behind the scenes of it. It will have lots of our signature recipes, so if you come here for those, you'll find them in the book, too. We'll be writing up the successes and epic failures we've had in the kitchen and summarizing the lessons, tips, and tricks that have created our practice of quarter-life cooking. But if you're more into gossip, we'll also be sharing tons of details about the little life journey that transformed us from just-out-of-college kids of 22 and 23 to the lovely adults we are today.

So stay tuned, and give us suggestions if you have them. We're really excited to be writing!

From our kitchen, where we're celebrating! with cookies!, to yours,

Cara and Phoebe, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOKS

**Recipes**

Dark Chocolate Cookies with Milk Chocolate Chips
Makes 36 cookies

I have a very clear memory of making a similar cookie (one that also called for melted chocolate in the batter) back in high school. The recipe was for a triple chocolate cookie from Cook's Illustrated magazine, and Kate, my younger sister, and I had been dying to make it for ages. We finally loaded up on chocolate on a mom-sponsored trip to Whole Foods, and we came back ready to bake. Unbeknown to us, the fancy Valrhona chocolate bar we'd acquired was flavored with orange. Tasting the batter, and later the cookies, Kate I could not for the lives of us figure out what had made the cookies taste so...unconventional. We kept saying things to each other like, "there's sort of a fruity undertone, don't you think?" Finally, a teacher (we had baked the cookies for a class of Kate's) came out with it: "I love the orange flavor," she said, completely casually.

These cookies, similar to those of the story, are great made with regular, non-orange, semi-sweet Ghiradelli chocolate chips, which is what I used here. More important is the quality of the cocoa powder--I like to use non-alkaline Scharffen Berger.

Ingredients
3/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cups sugar
1 tablespoon molasses
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons natural (not Dutch processed) cocoa powder
3/4 cups milk chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

In the microwave, nuke the semi-sweet chocolate chips until just barely melted, stirring to melt the last few chips. Set aside to come to room temperature.

Cream the butter with the sugar and molasses until lightened and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla extract and cream again. Fold in the room temperature melted chocolate until combined.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda, and cocoa powder. Stir into the butter mixture just until all the flour is incorporated (the dough will be pretty tough). Stir in the milk chocolate chips.

Roll the dough into tablespoon-sized balls. Bake on a parchment-lined baking sheet for 8 minutes, then leave on the parchment to cool at least 10 minutes before eating.

THE Chocolate Chip Cookie with Milk and Semi-Sweet Chips
Makes 3-4 dozen, depending on size

I have to attribute my appreciation of this combo--milk and semi sweet--to one of my closest friends, JoJo, with whom I spent many hours reading cookbooks and copying out recipes in the basement of the Harvard Coop. The first time I watched her pour chips from two bags into her dough, I was surprised. Then, almost immediately, I found myself a convert.

As for the chocolate chip cookie recipe, it's more or less the Tollhouse one, and I think it makes the most exquisite soft cookies--just be sure to underbake!

Ingredients
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup packed light brown sugar (you can substitute dark, but then use a little less brown sugar and slightly more white)
1 cup butter (2 sticks), softened
1 egg
2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour--poured in
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup milk chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Mix sugars and butter in a large bowl. With a mixer, hand-held beater, or very strong arm, beat until creamy. Then beat in the egg until the batter is fluffy and light.

Stir in flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir in nuts and chocolate chips.

Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 6-8 minutes or until just barely set. Cool for 5-10 minutes on the cookie sheet, then remove to a rack or a plate to finish cooling.
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Cooking For Others: 25 Years of Jor, 1 of BGSK

EVENT: Jordana's 25th Birthday, and the 1-Year BGSK Anniversary
VENUE: Jor's Parents' Apartment, Upper West Side
PARTY SIZE: 40-50
TYPE: Hardy, Asian-Themed Cocktail Buffet
MENU: BBQ Chicken Satays (P); Soy-Sesame Tofu Satays (C); Asian Meatballs with Tomato-Ginger Chutney (P); Manchurian Cauliflower (P); Summer Rolls (C); Peanut Udon Noodles (C); Potato-Pea Masala with Cilantro-Mint Chutney (P); Naan (Local Indian Takeout); Cupcakes Three Ways (C)
PHOTOS BY: Alex

Exactly a year ago, as I tried to fit one more piece of Thanksgiving leftover poundcake into my stomach, I got this email (recreated below) on my Blackberry:

From: Phoebe
Date: Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 4:57 PM
Subject: blog!
To: Cara

http://biggirlssmallkitchen.blogspot.com/

send me the recipe for the sweet pea bruschetta and a little "tid bit" and we'll get this sucker going!!! I'm trying to figure out the software. It won't let me put up two "About me's", one for each of us. So we will just have to figure out one together.

let me know what you think!! was surprised by how nice the format was to begin with. Now we gots to start posting!!!!

xxooxox

***

Two weeks prior, I had volunteered Phoebe to co-throw a cocktail party for our best friend Jordana's 24th birthday. After that, we must have been talking about how much we liked cooking and what we should do with that affection, because although I have no gmail evidence of it, I don't remember being completely aghast when I got the above email from Phoebe. The record is a little hazy. As far as we can piece together, she was talking to her cousin Sarna at her Thanksgiving table about the emptiness of corporate work. Her cousin, ever logical, said, "Well, what would you rather be doing?" Phoebe said, "cooking." Her cousin answered, ever logical once again: "Well, why don't you do something about that." And then the next morning, still full and with food on the brain, she created a Blogger account (which seemed as complicated back then as it does simple now), and sent this email. And the rest is history.

Since Jordana's party, the subject of our first post ever, would mark the approach of our one-year anniversary, we were keen to prove to ourselves, our friends, and our readers just how far we've come. We spent a week rearranging recipes into various permutations, but as soon as we figured out the perfect menu--Asian and Indian, mostly vegetarian--it all seemed to fall into place. A year of working together gave us the intuition to cook on our own on Friday and Saturday. We met in Jor's parents' kitchen about 6pm (4:30pm was the intended time, but we were running a little late), put on random old clothes from Jor's childhood closet, and got to work:

frying the cauliflower,

icing the three kinds of cupcakes,

arranging udon noodles in orange bowls,

warming meatballs and chutney, and

rolling filling into rice-paper for summer rolls (couldn't have done it without you, Sarah!).

We had just changed into our regular clothes at 8:15 when the first (fashionably late) guests began to arrive. The table was laden with the products of our cooking:

And then there was the birthday girl herself, in a dress of her own design and construction.

You wouldn't know it to look at her, but she ate most of those bowls of peanut udon noodles.

As we carried out the cupcakes to Jor and sang an off-key rendition of Happy Birthday, we caught each other's eyes: it was our birthday, too!

From our blog, one year old today, to your kitchen,

Phoebe and Cara, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOKS

**Recipes**

Asian Meatballs with Tomato-Ginger Chutney
Makes 50 meatballs

After the success of my birthday meatballs, I felt inclined to put an Asian spin on my winning recipe for Jor's Indian-esque buffet. In place of basil and parsley, cilantro. Instead of ketchup and Parmesan, red chili paste and ginger.

Ingredients

For the Meatballs:

3 large shallots, minced
1 cup chopped fresh cilantro, plus 1/4 cup
1 1/2 cups fresh bread crumbs
1/2 cup dried bread crumbs
3 large eggs, beaten
2 tbsp roasted red chili paste*
3 tbsp fresh chopped ginger
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
8 garlic cloves, minced
3 teaspoons kosher salt
1lb ground beef
1lb ground veal
1lb ground pork

Tomato-Ginger Chutney

Ingredients
2 large onions
6 garlic cloves minced
3 tbsp fresh chopped ginger
1 28-ounce can fire roasted crushed tomatoes
1 tbsp kosher salt
2 tbsp roasted red chili paste*
1 tsp cumin
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
½ cup chopped cilantro leaves

*use 2-3 tbsp of the Thai Kitchen brand. Don’t add as much if using a more authentic brand, since it might be a lot spicier.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, combine all the ingredients for the meatballs and fold them together thoroughly with your hands.

Roll the meat mixture into 1 ½ inch balls and place them next to each other on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or tin foil. They can be fairly close together, as they will not expand like cookies.

Bake them in the oven for 25-30 minutes, until tops have browned and the meatballs are cooked through.

Meanwhile, in a Dutch oven or saucepan, sauté the onions until translucent and soft, about 8-10 minutes. Add the garlic and the ginger and cook for an additional two minutes. Carefully pour in the tomatoes, salt, chili paste, and cumin and stir to combine. Simmer over medium heat for ten minutes, until the mixture has thickened. Add the vinegar and simmer for another few minutes.

Puree the sauce in a food processor or using an immersion blender until smooth. Stir in half the cilantro and use the remaining leaves for garnish.

To serve, place the meatballs in a shallow bowl next to the tomato chutney and some torn naan. Let guests create naan meatball sandwiches, or just use toothpicks for dipping the balls in the chutney.

Udon Noodles with BGSK Peanut Sauce
Serves 30 as an appetizer

These may be our most-requested dish, especially when Jordana is doing the requesting. We have her to thank for the lovely orange and green palette.

Ingredients
4 tablespoons fresh ginger, minced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons chile paste
1 1/2 cups smooth peanut butter, preferably natural
2/3 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup sesame oil
1 cup water

3 pounds fresh or frozen udon noodles (not the dry, packaged kind)

Chopped scallions (green parts) or julienned cucumbers for serving

Process the ginger and garlic in the food processor until smooth. Add the sugar to help smooth things out. Add the rest of the ingredients, up to the water and process until smooth. Add the water. If your food processor is small, you may have to do this in two batches. Set aside to let the flavors meld, at least an hour, or refrigerate overnight.

When ready to make the noodles, bring an enormous pot of water to the boil. Cook the udon for a few minutes, as per package directions, then drain and add to the peanut sauce, tossing to combine evenly. Serve in small portions, topped with cucumbers or scallions.

You can also make this sauce for plain wheat noodles (e.g. linguine), but you won't get the sumptuous carbiness of the thick white udon noodles.

Summer Rolls
Makes 30 rolls

Ingredients
30 rice paper wrappers*
1 cup carrots, julienned
1/2 cup mint leaves
1 cup cilantro leaves
1 package rice noodles, soaked in hot water for 5-10 minutes until soft, then drained, tossed with a few teaspoons peanut oil, and cut into smaller pieces
1 small Napa Cabbage
1/3 cup roasted peanuts

*These are different than egg roll or spring roll wrappers, which need to be cooked. Find them cooked or fresh at specialty stores or in Chinatown. If dried, you'll need to follow the directions on the package, moistening the circles in very warm water before adding the filling and rolling.

Prepare the cabbage: cut the leaves and some of the white stems very fine. Layer in a colander, sprinkling kosher salt over each layer. Leave in the sink or on a plate to drain for 1-2 hours. Rinse, drain, and press out even more moisture by wrapping the cabbage in a dish towel.

Have all the other ingredients prepped and in bowls in front of you.

Prepare a rice paper wrapper as necessary, then add about 2 tablespoons rice noodles and a few carrots. Sprinkle a tablespoon or two of the cabbage, then a few herbs and a few peanuts. Don't worry as much about neatness as about size: there shouldn't be more than about 1/4 cup of filling total.

Starting from one side, beginning rolling the filling in tightly, folding the sides in to seal. Arrange the rolls on a platter and serve with nuoc cham dipping sauce (below).

For the Nuoc Cham:

2 cloves garlic
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons lime juice
3 tablespoons Thai fish sauce
1/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon chili paste (or to taste)
2 tablespoons julienned carrots (optional)

Pulse the garlic with the sugar in a food processor. If you don't have one, mince the garlic, then sprinkle with about 1 teaspoon of the sugar and use it to pulverize the garlic while y0u chop.

Add the lime juice and let sit for about half an hour so the garlic can mellow.

Add the remaining ingredients and refrigerate until ready to use.


Potato-Pea Masala with Cilantro-Mint Chutney
Makes 10 main course servings (roughly a gallon)

Ingredients
3 lbs Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces
1 lb Sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces
2 jalapeños, seeded, coarsely chopped
1 5-inch knob peeled ginger, coarsely chopped
6 garlic cloves
½ tbsp cumin
2 tbsp curry powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp turmeric
2 tbsp honey
2 large onions, chopped
2 15oz can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
2 cups frozen peas
1 cup golden raisins
2/3 cup dried grated unsweetened coconut, toasted
1 lemon, juiced
1 cup chopped cilantro

In a large bowl, cover the potatoes with cold water.

In a small food processor, purée jalapeños, ginger, garlic, curry powder, cinnamon, turmeric, ¼ cup vegetable oil, 1/4 cup water, honey, and 1 teaspoon salt until smooth. Transfer purée to skillet and cook over medium-high heat until fragrant, about a minute. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until it begins to soften, about 8 minutes.

Drain potatoes, then add them to the onion mixture and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are barely tender, about 10 minutes.

Add chickpeas and 1 1/2 cups water. Stir to combine, scraping up any brown bits from the bottom. Cook covered until the potatoes are completely tender and the water is absorbed, about 15 more minutes. Add peas and raisins, and cook until heated through. Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon juice, toasted coconut, and cilantro, saving some for garnish.

Cilantro-Mint Chutney
Makes about 2 cups

Ingredients
2 cloves garlics
1 shallot
2 inch knob of ginger, peeled
1/3 cup cashews
1-3 jalapenos, seeded and roughly chopped
1 bunch cilantro, roughly chopped
1 bunch mint, roughly chopped
1 tbsp honey
Juice from one lemon
1/2 cup golden raisins

In a food processor, pulse the garlic, shallot, ginger, cashews, and jalapenos until minced. Add the herbs, honey, lemon juice and ¼ cup of warm water and puree until smooth. Add the golden raisons and puree again, adding any additional water to thin the mixture to your desired consistency. It should be slightly thinner than a pesto.

Garnish with mint and cilantro leaves, and serve alongside some naan.
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Cooking For Others: My Turkey Day Table

EVENT: The Lapine Thanksgiving
VENUE: Phoebe’s Parents’ Barn, Katonah New York
PARTY SIZE: 35-40
MENU: Grilled Turkey (Uncle Porky); Apple Cider Gravy, String Beans with Spiced Nuts, Semi-Sweet Potato Mash with Spiced Caramelized Onions (Mom); Mixed Greens with Lemon-Chive Vinaigrette, Pumpkin Leek Stuffing with Turkey Sausage (Me); Cranberry Sauce (Aunt Susan); Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie (Cousin Holly); Pumpkin Cheesecake (Cousin Jessica); Fruit Cake (Cousin Julie)

My dad’s side of the family is very close. In fact, my aunt, the only girl of four, married a man whose name only differed from hers by one letter, making half of the members of my Thanksgiving table Lapins, and the other half Lapines. That’s pretty close.

We almost always celebrate Thanksgiving with the Lapine-Lapin clan. The one time in recent memory that we did Thanksgiving with my mom’s side, the evening began with my grandmother biting (and drawing blood from) the only non-blood relative (or person married to one) at the table, and ended by my uncle outing my cousin during a poem he had written about family. That cousin now attends the Lapine-Lapin family Thanksgiving.

But despite the fact that our Thanksgiving dinner tradition now revolves around my Dad’s siblings and their generations of offspring (which seem to multiply by a few infants every year), my mother, the non-Lapine, has always been the one responsible for the meal. Since the clan is a rather large one, our Thanksgiving tablescape does not involve countless sides, but a few minimalist staples in massive proportions that return each year by popular demand.

For years, my roles in this huge undertaking were to chop the herbs for the turkey’s butter rub, slice the onions for the semi-sweet potato mash and roast the spiced nuts for the green beans. Occasionally, I would take over the caramelizing of the onions when my father, irrationally worried that there wouldn’t be enough food, would inevitably send my mother, the kitchen wench, out for three additional pounds of string beans and, once, another whole turkey. But recently my duties got upgraded to authority over one complete dish: the stuffing, which is the only item to change every year.

My memories of the cooking process include my mother getting really aggressive with the massaging of the turkey, making inappropriate comments all the while; frequent freak-outs that the gravy was too sweet; and a porch full of casseroles left overnight to chill since there was no room left in the fridge. The setting for these memories was my childhood home in Westchester, a strange red house my parents sold two years ago. Since then, they’ve moved most of our possessions (my apartment in Flatiron holds the rest) to a small two-story barn, which they rent from Anne, more of a neighbor than a landlord, who lives in the house next door.

While we lamented the lack of fridge and counter space in the old house when it came time for Thanksgiving, the small makeshift kitchen in the new barn nearly made us rule out our hosting the holiday all together. Without the screen porch, there was no room for the 40-person table, and with only an Easy Bake Oven of sorts, there was certainly no room for 3-4 turkeys. But as is the case with most family Thanksgivings, and especially that of the Lapine-Lapin clan, tradition held strong, and for the first time last year, we piled 40 people into the small barn, around a table that divided the large room into two halves, and stretched all the way into the kitchen.

Even in these closer quarters, there was no biting, fighting, or poem reading. Just good food, grilled turkeys (courtesy of my Uncle Porky), and a whole lot of Lapin(e)s.

From my kitchen, housing one big Turkey Day table, to yours,

Phoebe, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK

p.s. Check out yesterday's post for Cara's Turkey Day Table, now complete with '09 pictures!

Rosemary Spiced Pecans for the Green Beans

Pumpkin Leek Stuffing without the sausage for dad.

The other ten pounds of it.

Mom processing the hand delivered drippings from Uncle Porky's turkey for her Apple Cider Gravy with shallots and rosemary.

Turkey two ways: Lemon-Roasted and Mesquite-Grilled.

The spread.

The table, pre-Aunt Jennifer's decorations.

Dad's original place cards, circa 2006.

The table, adorned.

The kid's table, without kids.

The kid's table, with kids and full of ennui.

**Recipes**

Some leftover ideas from our archives:

Roasted Butternut Squash and Leek Quesadillas
Curried Sweet Potato Quesadillas
Creamed Corn Crostini
Egg & Squash Tartine
Red Flannel Hash (With Turkey)
My Mother's Garlic Soup (With Turkey)
Spinach Potato Cakes
Squash and Sweet Potato Croquettes
Sweet Potato Black Bean Burgers
Pesto Chicken Sandwiches (With Turkey, not Chicken)
Inside-Out Ravioli Pasta
Autumn Pasta Salad
Butternut Squash & White Bean Puree with Bacon-Sage Croutons
Spiced Carrot-Potato Puree

For next year:

Pumpkin Leek Stuffing with Turkey Sausage
Makes 30 servings

Ingredients

3 ½-2lb pumpkins, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
6 leeks, white and light green parts only, halved and thinly sliced
1 stick butter
½ cup of water or stock
2 ½ lbs hot or sweet Italian sausage (I used hot turkey), removed from the casing
3 sweet onions, chopped
3 fennel bulbs, chopped
1 tbsp fresh chopped thyme leaves
¼ cup dry white wine
4 loaves ciabatta, cut into 1 inch cubes
4 cloves garlic, chopped
½ cup sage leaves, coarsely chopped
6 eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups chicken stock
½ cup chopped fresh parsley

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Toss the pumpkin with a drizzle of olive oil and a generous amount of salt on several rimmed cookie sheets. Roast in the oven for 40-45 minutes, redistributing occasionally, until tender and beginning to brown. Remove and set aside in a large casserole (what you will use for the whole stuffing).

In a large Dutch oven or casserole, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the leeks and sauté for 5-10 minutes until the butter is incorporated and they begin to wilt. Add the water or stock, turn the flame to low, cover and cook for 20-25 minutes stirring occasionally. Cook slowly until the leeks are completely soft and beginning to turn to mush. Take the lid off and cook uncovered until most of the liquid has evaporated. Season with salt and add to the pumpkin mixture.

In the same pot or pan, add a little olive oil, turn the heat to high, and brown the sausage. Break it apart with your spatula as you go so the sausage crumbled into very small chunks. When properly browned, add to the pumpkin-leek mixture.

Add the onion, fennel, and thyme to the pot and sauté for 10 minutes, making sure to scrape up any brown bits from the sausage. When tender, but not caramelized, add the white wine and season with salt and pepper. Continue to sauté for another 5 minutes or so until the vegetables are very tender and the alcohol in the wine has burned off. Add to the pumpkin-leek mixture.

NOTE: everything up to this point can be done 1-2 days before.

The day of, combine the garlic and sage with ½ cup of olive oil. Heat in the microwave until the oil is fragrant and infused, about 1-2 minutes. Toss the cubed ciabatta with the oil and a generous amount of salt and turn out onto several rimmed cookie sheets. Toast in a 350 degree oven for 5 minutes—until the bread is crisp, but not completely browned.

Toss the bread together with the vegetable mixture, the eggs, stock, and parsley. Make sure it is well combined, and add any stock as necessary to make sure the bread is moist. Let stand for at least an hour so the flavors absorb. Then return to the oven and cook, covered, for 30 minutes. Uncover, and cook for another 20-30 minutes until the top is crusty and brown.


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From My Mother's Kitchen: We Give Thanks

EVENT: Thanksgiving
VENUE: Cara's Mom's House, Riverdale
PARTY SIZE: 12-25
MENU: Turkey; Gravy; Roasted Brussels Sprouts; Double Baked Sweet Potatoes; Cauliflower Puree; Broccoli Puree; Grandma Jane's Chestnut Stuffing; Biscuits; Chocolate Marquise with Mocha Whipped Cream Frosting; One-Crust Apple Tart; Pecan Pie; Pound Cake

My mom throws Thanksgiving every year in the house I grew up in. The size varies from about 12 to 25, depending on where my uncles wind up, but the contents of the menu rarely change, even if the quantities do. The most recent addition was the Roasted Brussels Sprouts, for some added green, and that probably happened half a dozen years ago. My mom makes the turkey, the gravy, the sweet potatoes double baked with butter and brown sugar, cauliflower puree, broccoli puree, and the roasted sprouts. Katie, my younger sister, helps with the cranberry sauce. Grandma Jane, my maternal grandmother, used to make the chestnut stuffing (secret ingredient: Pepperidge Farm croutons), but now that she lives in a smaller apartment, my mom makes that, too. Grandma Jane insists on reimbursing her for the jars of chestnuts.

As for me, I'm in charge of the biscuits. They are the classic rolled biscuits from The Joy of Cooking, but years ago we started substituting in cream for most of the butter, so they're incredibly flaky and rich at the same time that they're light. But that's not the interesting part about the biscuits. The fact is, I braid them. All sixty of them--sometimes more. They bake up like little challah breads, and then you can eat them by sort of unbraiding them, separating out the strands to reach the softer interior. My little cousins (not so little anymore) particularly love them.

And then Kate and I make the desserts. Our desired ratio is 3 people to 1 dessert, but we've been trying to grow out of that. The problem is, there are so many good things to make! We can't live without Maida Heatter's Chocolate Marquise with Mocha Whipped Cream Frosting, though I have no idea how something so un-Thanksgiving-y landed on the buffet. Mom makes her famous, one-crust apple tart, along with a pear tart if the number of guests warrants it. Then I've taken to making pecan pie, since I truly love it, and sometimes a pumpkin pie too, since that one is up there among Jill's favorites. We make the pound cake from The Silver Palate. Usually, only a slice or two of it gets eaten, but it tastes so wonderful the next day, toasted, that we often wind up leaving it on the menu.

Last but not least, we really do make a menu. We may have started printing it from the color printer when we first got one, back in 1991. Or maybe it was a little later. But coupled with the place cards--different every year, and sometimes edible--menu making was a nice creative diversion from cooking, even though the actual list of offerings is eternally the same.

From my kitchen, where mom's toil on Thanksgiving gives me a day off, to yours,

Cara, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK

labor of love: me braiding the biscuits

the table

cat at his post beneath the table

gingersnap place cards

Mom pouring a whole bottle of wine on the turkey

Uncle Michael carves smoked turkey breast and Uncle Brad the whole turkey

perfect roasted Brussels sprouts

finished biscuits, before being devoured by my cousin Jordyn

pecan pie and Mom's apple tart

from above: our dessert spread (minus Chocolate Mousse cake, still in the freezer)

**Recipes**

Some ideas for Thanksgiving Tables from the BGSK archives:

Sides:

Caramelized Corn
Green Beans with Spiced Nuts and Cider Vinaigrette
Butternut Squash & White Bean Puree with Bacon-Sage Croutons
Orange Sweet Potatoes
Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Bacon
Semi-Sweet Potato Mash with Caramelized Onions

Desserts:

Classic Pound Cake
Pumpkin Praline Pie
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread
Pear Almond Tart

And for a Smaller-Scale Gathering:

Turkey Burgers with Red Onion and Beet Relish

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Recipe Flash: Chocolate Mousse with Gingerbread Cream

EVENT: Bon Appetit Holiday Recipe Contest--Vote for the Mousse here!
DISH: Chocolate Mousse with Gingerbread Whipped Cream
PART OF THIS HOLIDAY MENU: Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Bacon; Inside-Out Ravioli Pasta

Last week, Phoebe and I got to discussing the strange and tragic dearth of chocolate around the holidays. Between the spices and the nuts, the fruited loaves and the Christmas cookies, I suppose there just isn't room for it (though my Thanksgiving dessert spread, which features my sister's rendition of Maida Heatter's Chocolate Marquise with Coffee Cream, and the cake we eat on Christmas--the famous Rich Chocolate Celebration Cake--are happy exceptions). So rather than doing away with the deliciousness of pecan pie, pumpkin pudding, and apple tart for the sake of chocoholics we thought about how we might actually add the "good stuff" to our favorite seasonal desserts, creating a revolutionary new holiday-time paradigm.

I did once make a two layer chocolate and pumpkin tart which was delicious. But if you asked me off the top of my head what holiday dessert might be best suited to some chocolate-oriented tweaking, I'd answer very quickly: "gingerbread."

I think that both gingerbread and gingersnaps can profit greatly from chocolate chips, icing, or coating, especially slightly creamy milk chocolate. The first time I experienced this ravishing taste sensation was when I made Alice Medrich's fresh gingerbread with milk chocolate chunks from her book about holiday baking. After that, I was sold.

As I said, Phoebe and I were talking, and when she said "chocolate," I said "gingerbread," and then she said, "chocolate mousse" and then I said "with gingersnaps" and she said, "what about with gingersnap flavored whipped cream?" So that's what I did: added the classic holiday spices to the white chocolate-sweetened whipped cream and piled it on top of rich, unapologetically chocolate-y mousse. A gingersnap on the side adds a fabulous crunch, and the dish successfully escorts chocolate head-first into the holiday kitchen.

From my kitchen, albeit small, to yours,

Cara, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK

**Recipe**

Chocolate Mousse with Gingerbread Whipped Cream
Serves 8

For the mousse:

Ingredients
3.5 ounces dark chocolate (about 65%), chopped
1/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon molasses
1 egg yolk
3 egg whites
pinch salt
2 tablespoons sugar

Melt the dark chocolate in a bowl in the microwave for 20-second intervals, until just melted. Stir to smooth, then set aside until it reaches room temperature. (Or you can use a double boiler.)

Combine the milk and the butter in a small bowl and microwave until the butter is melted and the milk is just below boiling--watch carefully that the milk does not boil over. Stir well, then pour over the melted chocolate and stir gently with a fork or a whisk. Add the egg yolk and molasses and stir again until smooth.

Beat the egg whites with the pinch of salt on medium speed until they form soft peaks. Slowly, sprinkle in the sugar and continue to beat until the eggs hold the trail of the beaters and the peaks are somewhat firmer.

Pour about a third of the egg whites into the chocolate and stir to combine. Add the remaining whites and fold them in very carefully, keeping the mixture as fluffed up as possible. Pour the mousse into a trifle bowl or individual glass ramekins, or form it into a round on a serving platter.



Refrigerate at least an hour until set.

For the whipped cream:

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
2.5 ounces good-quality white chocolate (should contain cocoa butter; Green & Black is a good option), chopped
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
pinch salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine the white chocolate and 1/4 cup of cream in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave for 20-second intervals, until just melted. Stir with a fork to smooth. Add the spices and the vanilla, and set aside to come to room temperature, stirring it occasionally as it sits.

When ready to eat, pour the remaining cream into a mixing bowl. Beat until thickened and firm, then drizzle the spiced white chocolate mixture around the top of the cream. With a spatula, carefully fold it in. Heap the cream on top of the mousse, whether in individual portions or one large serving dish. Garnish with shaved chocolate and a half batch of these gingersnaps for crunch.
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Working With What You Have: Those Without a Kitchen

EVENT: Thursday Night "Home-Cooked" Meal
VENUE: Upper West Side Shelter for Seniors
TYPE: Sit-Down, (Paper-) Plated Family Dinner
PARTY SIZE: 20
MENU: Mediterranean Catfish Spaghetti; Salad; Cookies

For most of my life, I’ve felt more or less involved in my community. Back in high school and college, I often volunteered by way of class or curriculum at a variety of different organizations in New York City and Providence. It’s occurred to me over the course of this past year that since I’ve left school and have been without an institution that encourages such service, I have been rather selfish with my time. And while feeding twenty-somthings on a regular basis could be considered giving back to the community, my pair of capable hands could probably be better put to use at the service of a slightly more needy population.

Earlier this year, my mother began volunteering at a shelter on the Upper West Side. Every Thursday, the organization sponsors a special family meal for those staying under its roof, and for those who have since been placed in long-term, permanent housing but who return for the social services provided by the center. The guest “chef” of the evening is a volunteer who cooks the meal of his or her choosing, so long as it sticks to the semi-strict, and somewhat random Kosher guidelines of the shelter. No matter what is made, the Thursday night dinner is a bright spot in the shelter’s meal routine, which during the rest of the week is made up of frozen dinners and canned fruit for dessert.

Since my mother took over the Thursday dinner responsibilities, more members of the greater shelter family seem to be showing up for the meals. Her legendary reign began when she made my Sweet and Savory Moroccan Chicken Stew, which led to several rounds of thirds, and a few of the female volunteers asking to take leftovers home to their boyfriends. Though I believe this was the only recipe of mine that she has tried on the shelter crowd, I’ve been a frequent adviser the weeks she cooks, since the kitchen, unsurprisingly, is really quite small.


These conversations only fueled my feelings of community negligence. So a few weeks ago, I joined my mother to make twenty servings of Mediterranean pasta with fresh fish, a luxury the shelter folk rarely get to enjoy. The space was small indeed—you couldn’t open the pantry or front door while someone was manning the stove, and since there was only room for one at the stove station anyway, that meant I was chopping onions. The pasta sauce turned out brilliant, and though the residents came back for thirds once again, I was also grateful to be able to take a little of it home for lunch the next day (pictured above).

Thanksgiving is approaching, and it’s always around the holidays, as I am in meal planning overdrive—brainstorming how many baking dishes will fit in my oven at one time—that I try to remember those among us without kitchens. I hope there is some other wonderful mother putting aside her own family obligations this Thursday to cook up a Kosher feast at the shelter, as I don’t know what we would do come Thursday without mine. The holidays are such a busy time in our kitchens, but sometimes it can be even more rewarding to step into someone else’s, if only to feed those who are not fortunate to have one at all.

From my kitchen, ready to lend a hand in yours,

Phoebe, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK

**Recipe**

Mediterranean Catfish Spaghetti
Makes 16-20 servings

Ingredients

4 fennel bulbs, chopped
4 large Vidalia onions, chopped
8 garlic cloves, minced or pushed through a press
4 (28oz) cans of crushed tomatoes
4 tbsp hot red pepper paste (or 1 tbsp crushed red pepper flakes)
5 oz petite capers
1 ½ tbsp salt (plus more to taste)
4lb spaghetti or linguine
6lb cat fish filets or other white fish
2 tablespoons parsley, chopped roughly (for garnish)

In a large (very large) pot or dutch oven, sauté the onions and fennel in a generous glug or two of olive oil over medium-high until translucent, about 10-15 minutes. Add the garlic, tomatoes, red pepper paste or flakes, capers, and salt, and bring to a simmer. Cook for 15-20 minutes, until the sauce has thickened and the flavors have combined.

Meanwhile, bring a large (very large) pot of water to boil. Cook the pasta according to package directions. Drain, toss with olive oil so the strands don’t stick together, and set aside.

10 minutes before service, gently add the fish filets to the sauce and push them down so they are submerged. Allow to gently simmer until the fish is cooked through. Be careful not to stir too much—you don’t want the fish to fall apart. It will easily, so the end result will be chunks of cat fish, but you want there to be sizable pieces to serve.

Top each plate with a helping of spaghetti and a generous ladle full of fish and sauce. Garnish with some fresh chopped parsley, and serve immediately.
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Cooking For Others: 24 Candles, 48 Meatballs

Birthday Meatballs (not cookies)

EVENT: A 24th Birthday Din-arty
VENUE: Phoebe’s Parents' Apartment, Upper West Side
TYPE: Large Buffet Dinner Party
PARTY SIZE: 40
MENU: Mini Meatball Subs; Wild Mushroom Mac 'n Cheese; Pesto Mac 'n Cheese; Butternut Squash Mac 'n Cheese; Arugula Salad with Lemon-Basil Vinaigrette; Big Kid Hot Chocolate (Adam); Red Velvet Cupcakes (Salima)

Birthdays are always kind of stressful. Every year I face the approaching day with a super laid-back attitude. And then the day arrives, and I realize I have to grate 6 pounds of cheese. The rational way out of this is, of course, that since I love to cook for people, why wouldn’t I want to do so for forty of my closest friends on my day of birth--and since I am a control freak, why wouldn’t I want to do so all by myself? Then, sometime during the afternoon of, when I am running two hours behind schedule, lugging grocery bags home, hungover, I curse myself for not doing shots at a bar at midnight and calling it a birthday. But the occasional beer tear aside, I always have fun doing things this way. I love stressing about feeding people. And on my birthday, I love it even more, because it distracts me from stressing about getting old.

This year’s planning and hair pulling was pretty tame, all things told. I decided to take a page out of Cara’s book and go with a retro theme: Mac 'n Cheese three ways, Big Kid Hot Chocolate (a recent b-day fave) on tap, and the potential for a round or two of Jenga!. As the guest list grew, and the day grew nearer, I began to shiver like a Jewish mother with worry that 6 pounds of pasta (combined with over 6 pounds of cheese) might not be enough food.

In my time of crisis, I of course turned to Cara. For at least an hour, part of it on a crowded, uptown subway, I obsessed over the perfect combination of cheese type and pasta shape, and whether they would work with the butternut squash and pesto accents I had in mind. It wasn’t intentional torture, though it might have been for the other subway riders, but I did feel less guilty about my persistent menu pestering since Cara wouldn’t actually be able to attend the party. This news initially led to more stress over what I would do for dessert, since I draw the line at baking my own birthday cake (luckily, birthday goddess Salima came to the rescue with 50 homemade red velvet cupcakes).

But I also wanted to do something for the carnivores in the crowd, something that would cut the cheese (te he…) with something straight-up savory, meaty, and delicious. I landed on Mini Meatballs Subs—spicy, saucy, and just small enough to be self-served inside a dinner roll. Cara gave me her seal of approval, followed by a few text messages of encouragement from Pittsburgh the day of.
The meatballs fulfilled all my greatest birthday hopes and fears, especially by the first few guys who walked in the door, tasted a sub, exhaled a mumbled expression of glee, and proceeded to inhale the rest. Forty-eight meatballs later, the pot was empty, and the first 20 guests were congratulating themselves on being the luckiest diners at the party. Oh well, I’ll just have to make 75 more for next year.

From my kitchen, where I aim to eat my age in meatballs, to yours,

Phoebe, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK

luckily, there was plenty of Big Kid Hot Chocolate to go around

**Recipes**

Mini Meatball Subs
Makes 50 balls

Ingredients

For the meatballs:

1 large onion, grated
1 1/2 cups chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, plus 1/4 cup
1 1/2 cups grated Parmesan cheese, plus 1/4 cup
1 cup fresh bread crumbs
1/2 cup Italian-style bread crumbs
3 large eggs
¼ cup ketchup
8 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
3 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for seasoning
1 ½ lb ground beef
1 ½ lb ground veal

For the sauce:

2 large onion
6 garlic cloves minced
1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes, chopped
1 15oz can diced tomatoes
1 tbsp kosher salt
1 tsp red pepper flakes
3 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, combine all the ingredients for the meatballs and fold them together thoroughly with your hands.

Roll the meat mixture into 1 ½ inch balls and place them next to each other on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or tin foil. They can be fairly close together, as they will not expand like cookies.
Bake them in the oven for 25-30 minutes, until tops have browned and the meatballs are cooked through.


Meanwhile, in a Dutch oven or saucepan, sauté the onions until translucent and soft, about 8-10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for an additional two minutes. Carefully pour in the tomatoes, salt, red pepper flakes, and stir to combine. Simmer over medium heat for 10-15 minutes, until the mixture has thickened and the flavors have incorporated.

Puree the sauce in a food processor or using an immersion blender until smooth. Stir in the chopped parsley use the remaining leaves for garnish. Gently fold the meatballs into the sauce and cook for five minutes more.

To serve, place the meatballs in a shallow bowl and set along side a bowl of small diner rolls (sliced halfway down the middle like hot dog buns). If you cannot find these in the bakery department of your grocery store, you can use mini hot dog buns, or cut some buns in half. Allow guests to serve themselves, and place toothpicks on the side for those modern ladies who want to skip the bread.

Pesto Mac n’ Cheese

Makes 12 servings

This recipe is a play on the Conchiglie with Five Cheeses I served for Matt’s baked pasta bash back in April. Instead of the tomato base, I used pesto. And to make the texture slightly more mac-like and cheesy, I bulked up on the Fontina and left out the Gorgonzola.

Ingredients

2 lb conchiglie rigate
4 cups heavy cream
2 cups pesto
1/2 lb shredded mozzarella
1 cup grated Parmesan (reserve some for garnish)
1 1/2 cup fontina cheese, coarsely grated
½ cup ricotta cheese
2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 500 degrees

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Salt well, and cook the pasta for 5 minutes. Drain in a colander and set aside.

Meanwhile, combine cream, pesto, cheeses, and salt in a large bowl and stir to combine. Add the pasta and toss to coat.

Spread pasta mixture evenly in a casserole or baking dish. Bake uncovered for 7 to 10 minutes, until the top is browned and the bottom layer of pasta is tender.

Sprinkle with Parmesan and torn basil leaves and serve immediately.

pesto Mac n' Cheese, along side a stray Miley cup (back left)

Butternut Squash Mac n’ Cheese
Makes 12 Servings

The base for this mac is very similar to that of the mixed mushroom version I borrowed from Barefoot Contessa. I used two types of cheddar, one creamy and orange, one white and sharp, and I added some spices when roasting the squash to offset its sweetness.

Ingredients

For the Squash:

1 large butternut squash (about 2lb), peeled, seeded, and cut into 1-inch cubes
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
Pinch of cayenne pepper
salt

For the Mac:

2 lb elbow macaroni
1 stick of butter
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 quarts whole milk, scalded
24 oz extra-sharp Cheddar, grated
16 oz mild orange Cheddar, grated
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tbsp salt
4 garlic cloves, chopped
¼ cup chopped sage leaves
3 cups fresh white bread crumbs

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

On a cookie sheet, toss the squash with nutmeg, cayenne, salt, and a drizzle of olive oil. Roast in the oven for 20 minutes, until the squash is tender and beginning to brown, but not falling apart.

In the meantime, make the white sauce. In a large pot, heat the butter over a medium flame until melted. Whisk in the flour until fully incorporated. Add the milk, turn the heat down to low, and cook, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon until the sauce is thick, creamy, and coats the back of the spoon. Off the heat, mix in the cheese.

Cook the pasta according to package direction until 1 minute shy of al dente. Drain and add to the cheese mixture along with the squash.

Fold everything together carefully, and pour into one or two large baking dishes.

Pulse the garlic, sage, and bread crumbs in a food processor and sprinkle over the top of the pasta.

Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes until the top is browned and the cheese is bubbling.
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