Bourbon Vanilla Bean Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

Adapted from Rum Ice Cream from Chez Panisse Desserts by Lindsey Remolif Shere; this recipe was sent my way by Traca Savadago of Seattle Tall Poppy

Makes 1 quart

Ingredients

• 1 cup milk
• 2 cups whipping cream
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 6 egg yolks
• 1/4 cup bourbon
• 1 vanilla bean, split
• 1/3-1/2 c chocolate chunks

Directions

1. Place the milk, cream, and sugar in a non-corrosive saucepan. Scrape the insides of the vanilla bean into the mixture, then add the bean to the milk mixture.  Heat over medium heat until hot.
2. Whisk the egg yolks just enough to mix them and whisk in some of the hot mixture. Return to the pan and cook over low heat, stirring contstantly, until the mixture coats the spoon. Strain into a container and chill overnight.
3. Remove the vanilla bean, add the bourbon, taste, and add a little more if necessary. Freeze according to the instructions with your ice cream maker.  Add chocolate chunks during last five minutes of churning or whenever your maker’s instructions indicate you should add mix-ins.

The original recipe called for also more cayenne. Because there were younguns at the party, I skipped it, but if you like spice, it would be delicious with a pinch of that too.

Creole Deviled New Potatoes

Adapted from Beans, Green and Sweet Georgia Peaches

Serves 8

Ingredients

• 2 lbs very small new potatoes, washed and scrubbed (I got the tiny ones that they currently have at Trader Joes)
• 8 Tbl unsalted butter, softened
• 2 Tbl Creole Mustard (Maison Louisana is very good)
• 2 Tbl chopped parsley
• Salt and pepper

Directions

1. Fill a large pot with enough water to hold the potatoes comfortably, add a generous pinch of salt and place over high heat. 
2. When the water comes to a rapid boil, add the potatoes.  Cover and let return to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium and cook until the potatoes are just tender, about 20-30 minutes.
3. Drain well and let the potatoes cool and dry.  Dry out the pot.
4. Mix 2 Tbls of the butter with the mustard until blended and set aside.
5. Put the pot over medium heat and add remaining butter.  When melted, add the potatoes, another pinch of salt and some pepper, and shake the pan or stir the potatoes well to coat with butter.  Saute until the potatoes are browned.
6. Add the butter-mustard mixture and sauté until the potatoes are coated and the mixture browns.
7. Remove from heat and stir in parsley. Taste and adjust seasoning.  Serve hot or warm.

(I also saw them on a recent trip to an Indian grocery store with Karuna Ram, where we were shooting a grocery store photo essay.  So they are apparently used in Indian cooking as well, and who knows what else? Chayote: They Get Around.)

This was my first time cooking with this particular piece of produce, and I like it in this dish. I don’t know quite how to describe the chayote flavor and texture. It’s like almost the crispness of an apple but with a little bit of the give of a cucumber. It’s got a mild flavor but there is a slight bright tanginess that saves it from being bland.

In this, with the tomatoes, it makes an all-around tangy and satisfying vegetable dish, kind of as if a mild salsa was transformed into an entrée. Nice over rice, but also good as a side.

Mirlitons Etouffees or Smothered Mirlitons, Creole Style

Adapted from Beans, Greens and Sweet Georgia Peaches

Serves 8

Ingredients

• 5 medium mirlitons (aka chayote or vegetable pears), peeled, seeded and diced
• ¼ c EVOO
• 1 large yellow onion, chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 Tbl chopped parsley
• 2 Tbl chopped thyme
• 2 large bay leaf
• 1 c dry white wine
• 1 28-oz can of tomatoes
• 1 Tbl of Cajun seasoning

Directions

1. Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat in a large lidded skillet or saucepan. Add the onion and sauté until the onion has lost raw smell and is translucent.
2. Add the mirlitons and garlic, and sauté for about a minute or until the garlic is fragrant.
3. Add the parsley, thyme, bay leaf and wine, and let come to a boil.
4. Add the tomatoes and Cajun seasoning. Stir, and lower heat. Simmer until mirlitons are tender, about a half hour, tasting and adjusting seasoning as you go.

The recipe comes from the Frank Stitt's Southern Table book. My version of the recipe is actually based off a typo - I accidentally switched the quantities of the rosemary and brown sugar when I was typing up the recipe - but I like it so much as is, I'm sticking with the mistake.

Spiced Pecans

Adapted from Frank Stitt’s Southern Table

Makes 4 cups 

Ingredients

• 1 lb. pecan halves
• 1.5 tsp Kosher salt
• Pinch of freshly ground black pepper
• ¼ tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 heaping Tbl dark brown sugar
• 1 heaping tsp freshly minced rosemary leaves
• 1 Tbl melted butter
• 2 Tbl olive oil

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 and place pecans on a rimmed baking sheet.
2. Bake for 15 minutes.
3. Remove from oven. Toss pecans with all the other ingredients until well coated. The sugar tends to clump up so be sure to break those up.
4. Bake pecans for another 2-3 minutes, only until toasted and fragrant. Don’t overcook.

It was one of the dishes made in a hazy fog at 3AM the night before the party. I didn’t even really taste it.  And I’d originally wanted to assemble like little muffuletta crostini or something but ran out of time and sort of threw it on the table with some sliced toasted bread (Trader Joe’s Artisan parbaked baguette) at the very last moment.

Then the party started and I lost track of it, except to notice that all the baguette toasts had been eaten. So  hurriedly toasted up another baguette, which was almost all eaten up as well.  So I think people liked it pretty well.

Then I finally tasted it the next day and I really liked it, so there’s that.

Muffuletta Olive Salad Spread

Adapted from this recipe by Emeril Lagasse on Food and Wine.

Ingredients

• 1 cup pimento-stuffed olives, chopped, plus 2 tablespoons of liquid from the jar*
• 1 cup finely chopped giardiniera (pickled Italian vegetables) (1 cup), plus 1 tablespoon of liquid from the jar*
• ¾ cup pitted Calamata olives, chopped*
• 1 tablespoon minced shallot
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 2 teaspoon parsley
• Pinch of dried thyme
• Hearty pinch of crushed red pepper
• 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Directions

Mix all the ingredients together well and let sit for at least an hour. Serve.

*You can also put the olives, Italian vegetables and liquids in a food processor and pulse a few times until more finely chopped. I kind of enjoyed this version better, made for a better topping for the little toasts.

And not only are they learning English, they are also learning the alphabet.  Their minds are still learning how to keep straight what are, really, rather small visual differences on the keys themselves. 

Add to all that they have to struggle through an hour and a half of listening to ME trying to teach them, when native English speakers who've known me for more than two decades sometimes have trouble following the output of my addled brains.  All to maybe get a better job down the road or just get along a little easier here in the States.

There you go, there are some folks who are picking themselves up by their bootstraps, right?  But I guess I just get irritated by the "make your own luck" mentality as it often neglects to take into account that the mileage of one's luck may vary greatly depending on what kind of ride you're in in the first place.

That is all to say...lately I just feel really lucky, both about what ride I started out in and the fact that it's still motoring along. This is not some kind of floofy-poofy, soft focus, kittens-and-toddlers feeling of gratitude. It's a shocked kind of breathless feeling, like someone just yanked me by my hoodie back onto the sidewalk and out of the path of a bus.  Lately I think about this poem a lot.

It's by Wislawa Szymborska, fellow Polish lady.

Could Have

It could have happened.
It had to happen.
It happened earlier. Later.
Nearer. Farther off.
It happened, but not to you.

You were saved because you were the first.
You were saved because you were the last.
Alone. With others.
On the right. On the left.
Because it was raining. Because of the shade.
Because the day was sunny.

You were in luck - there was a forest.
You were in luck - there were no trees.
You were in luck - a rake, a hook, a beam, a brake,
A jamb, a turn, a quarter-inch, an instant...

So you're here? Still dizzy from
another dodge, close shave, reprieve?
One hole in the net and you slipped through?
I couldn't be more shocked or
speechless.
Listen,
how your heart pounds inside me.

I hate saying what poems are "about" but since she lived in Poland during WWII, it's pretty clear what events this one is referring to.  Like any good poem, though, it moves out past that to something universal.

I don't know what, exactly, I expected for adult life. I do remember my adolescent fantasies of success and fulfillment.  Underneath that, though, I guess some part of me has been bunched up, anxious, anticipating catastrophe & calamity.

Not always consciously, not always in some kind of Eeyore pessimist way. But I realize now I was operating under the assumption that the odds of someone like me getting to any kind of tidy, pleasant, contented adult life were quite...long.

So lately, every day that my life seems to veer away from the edge of calamity (I worry I'm about to lose my job, but it turns out they just cut my hours; a loved one gets follow-up cancer test results back and things look okay, etc.), every day that I manage to make my bed and eat a successful series of meals and go for a walk and look at trees, every time I watch Mad Men and realize I don't know how I survive - or, at least, how I would have found happiness - if I lived in a time when or a place where women couldn't/can't make unorthodox life choices with relative ease, I am stunned from unexpected luck.

I do feel dizzy from another dodge, like I squeezed through a hole in this net I've apparently been waiting to descend over my life.  Or from the realization that I could have been born into a choking net that I would have had to spend much more of my life fighting.

I've always liked Thanksgiving but I might just finally be enough of a grown-up to actually understand why people started out wanting to give thanks in the first place.

I am off to friend-of-blog Sarah's for vegetarian Thanksgiving and I'm also grateful that she's been indulgent enough to let me contribute to the menu.  And I'm grateful that despite the lack of attention I've given this blog lately, it's helped me learn how to cook, something I've always wanted to know how to do, but before I combined the learning process with writing, I didn't know how to make it happen.

So here's what I'm making, and the process has been so much less grueling than previous cookathons. I really think I'm starting to get the hang of all this. I'll report back with recipes tweaks later.

• Vegetarian stuffing (made with vegetarian sausage a la Cafe Flora & Mark Bittman's roasted vegetable stock)
• Buttermilk scallion black pepper biscuits
• Spinach salad w/candied pecans, gorgonzola & balsamic vinaigrette
• Pear cranberry cake
• Bourbon vanilla bean ice cream with chocolate chunks
• Mulled appled cider sorbet

Hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving too!