Mardi Gras Southern Food Party 2010

Remainder of the Pretender-to-the-Throne CakeSo this past weekend I had myself a little Mardi Gras party. It was a chance to cook a bunch of Southern and Southern-ish food and then have some friends come over and eat it. 

I’m not exactly sure when I got the bee in my bonnet to have a Mardi Gras party, but I think it was when I was sitting at the Kingfish Café with Rachel and Jason on their most recent Seattle trip in early January.  The Kingfish is a popular Seattle restaurant that serves Southern-influenced food, and my visit with Rachel and Jason was my third time there.

Until recently, despite all my cooking curiosity, I’d never really cared about Southern food.  I didn’t know much about it, and what I did know didn’t seem interesting to me. Baby didn't really get into the spirit.Then back when I was at the cooking school, I worked a class once with the chef of Kingfish, Kenyatta Carter.  Her food was not what I was expecting. I guess I’d always thought that Southern food would be heavy, gloppy, fatty. But Kenyatta’s food was so delicious, fresh, bright and flavorful.  I realized my ideas about Southern cooking might be off, and my curiosity was piqued.

It took me a while, but again, I think it was this last trip to Kingfish was the one that finally made me think, “Hey, I’d like to cook some of this stuff.”  Mardi Gras was coming up, it seemed a perfect time to have a party. 

This was party planning on a budget, and I think I want to do a few entries on the mechanics of that, but in the meantime, wanted to get up a post with the dishes I made in case anyone is looking for some fun Mardi Gras recipes to celebrate with this week.  I have to say I was really happy with almost all of the stuff I made, and think some of these recipes are tasty enough to make on a regular basis.

Here are two of the books I got from the library and used a lot for this.

I highly recommend them both. Beans, Greens and Sweet Georgia Peaches has a lot of interesting little tidbits about Southern cooking and culture. Frank Stitt’s Southern Cooking is more focused on a refined version of Southern flavors, and has a lot of beautiful-looking dishes. I didn’t get to make all the things I wanted to make from them, and think they are definitely worth a look if you are interested in Southern cooking. 

And this book - DamGoodSweet - about New Orleans desserts came in on my library hold list too late to make it into the mix, but definitely looking at some recipes in it for the future.  Some of the author's recipes are featured on Epicurious right now, but there are more in the book that look intriguing. Like...Cane Syrup Ice Cream, Brandy Milk Punch Ice Cream, Lemon-Herbsaint Poppers, Sweet Corn Cake and Root Beer Syrup…crap, I might need to have another Southern food party sooner than next year's Mardi Gras.

But first, a look back and some good recipes to try if you are cooking for Mardi Gras. Here’s what was on the menu (the little icon means it’s an offsite recipe); I can genuinely recommend all these recipes. Even the ones that didn't blow my mind were solid:

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Appetizer/Hors D'Oeuvres Recipes

Pickled Shrimp stagesFrank Stitt’s Pickled Shrimp - These were nice, with the pickle adding a bright, lemony flavor. I think the recipe as written might be a little underseasoned for my palate. If you're accustomed to or like a little more pop, I'd add a smidge more salt.

Muffuletta Olive Spread w/Toast - This little bite was just an "extra" for me, an easy way to incorporate another NOLA food, but I wasn't expecting much. But it was a little overachiever that exceeded those expectations nicely.

Chipotle Cashews - Yes, the same nuts I'm always exclaiming about.

Frank Stitt’s Spiced Pecans - But omg there's been a coup and these have possibly usurped the top nut spot in my roster of recipes.

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Entrees

Gumbo Z’Herbes – I really liked this dish, a rich stewy thing full of greens. It might not be what one expects from a Roux development for the Gumbo gumbo as it was a special kind made during Lent and was originally (and in the version I made) meatless. Despite that, it’s exceptionally satisfying and flavorful.  I used my Roasted Vegetable Stock and made the Chow.com Cajun Seasoning listed in the recipe. Here’s a bit of interesting folklore about this dish from Grist: “Some say the dish should be made with at least seven greens. Others say as many as fifteen, but definitely an odd number for good luck. Most agree the more greens, the merrier, because for every green that cooks put into the gumbo, they’ll make a new friend that year.”

Etta's Cornbread Pudding stagesEtta’s Cornbread Pudding - I don't know if this is remotely Southern, but oh well. I'd made it before and liked it. I do feel like the cornbread was almost a little too sweet, so next time I might add less honey to it and a little more salt and pepper to the custard.

Mirilton Ettouffee - Tasty AND I learned what a mirliton is.

Perfect Rice - I used this for serving with both the militons and the gumbo. I prefer brown rice - even if it's not really traditional - and enjoyed this recipe made with brown basmati rice. I also used Roasted Vegetable Stock for this.

Creole Deviled New Potatoes - Very very tasty and a surprise hit. Uses Maison Louisiana Creole Mustard that is a delicious new foodstuff I learned about through this party.

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Desserts & Drinks

Ice cream trio

Sweet Potato Ice Cream with Praline Pieces - My sweet potato aversion made me initially not care for this, but upon a second tasting, I liked it better. Even for a sweet potato dish. Sweet potato fans seemed to like it without reservation.

Bourbon Vanilla Bean Ice Cream with Chocolate Chunks - My new go-to ice cream.

Chicory Coffee Ice Cream - I accidentally made this with regular chicory coffee instead of instant. It still tasted good, but not as intensely coffee-flavored. However, if that's all you can find, I'd say make it anyway and maybe add some chopped very dark chocolate or even chocolate-covered espresso beans to add that hint of pleasant bitterness to offset the sweet one wants in a coffee ice cream.

Hurricane Punch - I just made this virgin and left the rum out for folks to add. It was nice, although it was definitely more about following the New Orleans theme than necessarily being that mind-blowing of a cocktail.

Also, John and Patricia Eddy of Cook Local & Seasonal Cornucopia were kind enough to stop by and brought a delicious Bread Pudding with Grand Marnier Sauce that would be a hit with any menu. In what was either a happy coincidence or their own contribution to the Southern theme (I forgot to ask), they used Black Arkansas apples, an apple called for in another recipe from the Frank Stitt book that I'd intended to make but ran out of time.  The bread pudding was wonderful, so check it out on their site too.

(And as you might have guess if you know anything about King Cake, that picture up there is a FAR from authentic King Cake. I was going to make this Chow.com recipe, but ran out of time. Instead I made a cake from a box, stuck some babies in it and some Mardi Gras colors on top of it and called it a day. Even I have my limits.)

More Food that Matches My House: Zucchini Michoacan Style

Before I get into this tasty recipe adapted from My Mexico by Diana Kennedy, I have a confession. My name is Leslie and I have a virulent form of Contrary Maryness.

When free of outside influences, I am fairly agnostic about most things, able to see multiple points of view. But put me in close proximity to someone with a strongly-held opinion, or worse, several people strongly holding the same opinion, and I reflexively swing to the opposite side.

It’s so automatic that it almost feels physical, as though trying to pry my mouth open and utter the words, “I agree...” would be like trying to ask my DNA to re-arrange itself on the spot.

It’s annoying and obnoxious and I know it. But at this point, I just have to accept it about myself, and at best, try my damnedest to keep my mouth shut instead of always acting on my contrary impulses.

So right now the contrary impulse I am trying to suppress is Machismo in the Face of Tweeness.

I love Seattle, I love it so much I have two entire sites dedicated to it. But it is a different culture than I am used to. It’s very...gentle. Gentle sensibilities, gentle senses of humor, gentle language. It's like a J.Jill ad in the form of a metropolis.

It’s a town where things are not “good” or “great!” or “delicious” but rather they are “lovely.” Lovely lovely lovely. When you enter the city limits, they make you surrender all other positive adjectives and give you a laminated card that says “LOVELY.” And everyone just waves them around all the livelong day.

Okay, not really, but that’s sometimes what it feels like. And what’s so wrong with that? Nothing. It’s nice. It’s, yes, lovely.What kind of grumpy buzzkill with two thumbs could possibly have a problem with that? This guy. Cuz when you suffer from Contrary Maryness, the gentle loveliness just makes every foul-mouthed stevedore impulse you already have throb like a tension headache.

But then I started noticing that this gentleness was actually not just limited to Seattle. This kind of twee softness seems to be becoming an actual Thing, like a lifestyle that is being marketed to. Example: this Prius ad:

That thing is so goddamn twee I have sprained muscles trying to hit the mute button on my remote to avoid having that cutesy-poo infection of a sound take over my brains.

Once I started noticing it, it seems that in general grown adults are being marketed to as though they are...toddlers. Rounded edges, pastel colors, tweedly-dee music.The ubiquity of it arouses every Contrary Mary impulse and makesme want to get a motorcycle and run over a stuffed animal with it.

Anyway, this big preamble is mainly to establish that I am currently feeling very anti-cutesy-poo. This makes it even more shameful to admit that my entire house is color-coordinated like I’m some sort of six-year old. It's just tremendously not macho. Look at it.

I mean, it looks like the home of the target audience for that Prius ad.

But I just really like green. It reminds me of trees and I like trees. And I happened to be moving in and buying stuff right during the heyday of what this New Yorker article called “wasabi green.”

And so that’s bad enough, twee enough, if it weren’t for the artificial insertion of an extra recipe below, but this would be the third post in a row where the pictures of my food match my house, as though my cutesy-poo little commitment to a color theme continues into my mouth and down into my digestive tract.

But I promise that it’s all just a coincidence. I mainly am posting this zucchini recipe because Saturday is “Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Day”. So it’s really just a public service in case you are on the receiving end of some sneakiness. Or, if you are the sneaker, not the sneakee, why not print out a copy of the recipe and include it. It’s the least you could do.

I made this dish for my Mexican Memorial Day party and it was a big hit. I’ve made it again since then and it continued to satisfy. It’s an excellent way to use up a lot of zucchini, and keeps fairly well for a few days. I eat it over long-grain brown rice, but it's also tasty on its own.

And, as mentioned, just for a little accent color, I’m going to also include a recipe below adapted from the same book: Botana de Papas Locas which translates to “Crazy Potato Snack.” They'd make a good little vegetarian meal together.

Zucchini Michoacan Style via Diana Kennedy

Adapted from My Mexico by Diana Kennedy.

• 2 Tbl olive oil
• 2 lbs zucchini, trimmed and diced
• ½ cup water
• 1 medium white onion, chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1/3 cup chopped cilantro (stems okay)
• 3 poblano chiles OR 1 jalapeno+1 green bell pepper, charred (can do this under broiled or over flame on as stove), peeled, deveined, seeded and roughly chopped
• 1 cup sour cream
• ½ cup queso anejo OR queso fresco, but queso anejo strongly preferred
• S&P to taste

1. Heat oil in large dutch oven, add zucchini and sprinkle with salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally for about five minutes. Should be cooked but not soft.
2. Blend together the water, onion, garlic, cilantro and peppers. Blend until smooth.
3. Add liquid to pan, stirring well. Cover and cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add more water if it seems dry, but Kennedy cautions it should be “moist, but not too juicy.”
4. Stir in sour cream, simmer for 5 minutes more. Taste/season, sprinkle with queso, serve.

Botana de Papas Locas aka “Crazy Potato Snack” with Pineapple Vinegar

Okay, so as my friend Carolyn noted, this dish doesn’t look especially appetizing. And to be honest, I mainly made it in the first place because of the funny name. But I made it a second time because, as Carolyn also noted after her first comment, it’s delicious!

The recipe calls for mild vinegar. Since the recipe comes from Diana Kennedy’s My Mexico, which is the first place I heard of pineapple vinegar, I decided to make it with that.

I’ve used both homemade and storebought pineapple vinegar. The homemade is pretty simple to make, recipe here. It’s tangy and spicy. The great thing about it is it actually uses the rind of the pineapple. So if you are making something else with a whole pineapple, you can first wring a little extra life out of the rinds before composting or tossing.

My friend Sarah and I went on a big long quest for pineapple vinegar once, to no avail. Then she spotted this brand in a Seattle Safeway. Here’s a Chowhound post about it in case you want to try to track it down where you live.

If you can’t find either, just use any mild vinegar without too strong of a flavor. The storebought kind has 4.3% acidity, equivalent to a mild white rice vinegar.

One thing I would not substitute is any other chile powder for the chile de arbol as its flavor really elevates the dish. I think most stores with a good Hispanic food section will have it with the other little packets of spices and chile powders.

Other than the potato boiling time, this is a fast dish to make. Diana Kennedy’s recipe recommends serving it with toothpicks as hors d’oeuvres, but it’s also delicious as a side dish for a Mexican entrée.

Botana de Papas Locas aka “Crazy Potato Snack”

Adapted from My Mexico by Diana Kennedy 

• 1 lb small new potatoes
• ¼ cup pineapple or other mild fruity vinegar
• 3 Tbls olive oil
• 2 medium white onions, thinly sliced
• 2 tsp chile de arbol
• 1 lime
• Salt to taste 

1. Put potatoes in large pot, cover with water, add vinegar and large pinch of salt. Bring to boil and cook cover over medium heat for about 20 minutes until just tender, then drain.
2. Heat the olive oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add potatoes and fry for about 5 minutes until lightly browned.
3. Add onions and chile powder and cook, stirring occasionally to preventing sticking and burning, until the onions have lost their raw smell, about 5-10 minutes.
4. Remove from heat, squeeze lime juice over it, salt to taste, and toss.

The Best Dessert I've Ever Made: Chipotle Gingerbread, Caramel Ice Cream & Coffee Sauce

(Hey check out the Summer Ice Cream Social Poll over to the left there. I'm trying to whittle down some ice cream choices. Help me out and you will be rewarded with the warm glow of self-satisfaction!)

Elizabeth Falkner was on Top Chef Masters tonight.  She lost on the episode, but she is still a winner in my book, because one of her recipes is the base for the dish that won me the most praise of anything I've ever made.

I was involved this guy for a while who had a habit of making a lot of backhanded critical comments that I was too naive to understand were backhanded critical comments.  (The naivete, incidentally, also explains the "for a while" part of why I continued hanging around someone who liked to make backhanded critical comments to me about me.)

One time, we were talking about a meal we were eating (it was, in fact, one of the first times I had Pad Kee Mao, the Thai dish I'm still obsessed with), and he said, pointedly, "I'm not one of these people who's always saying 'This is the best thing I've ever had' but this is seriously one of the best things I've ever had."

It was about three months later, when I was no longer hanging out with him, that it hit me in one of those apropos-of-nothing waves of epiphany that you have after climbing your way out of a confusing whirlpool of a situation: he was talking about me.  Because I AM one of those people who is always saying something is the "best thing I've ever had."

And whatever, man.  I'm trying to come to grips and accept the fact that I am hyper and overenthusiastic. I'm constantly simmering over with too much too-muchness no matter how much I try to rein myself in.  I'm not cool or reserved. 

But imagine for a minute that I am.  I am a cool customer, rarely moved to effusive exuberance, to hyperbolic excess.  And imagine it is that person, that phlegmatic, calm, impassive person who is exclaiming to you: "This is the best dessert I've ever made."

  

Remember this dessert?  Of course you do, because who doesn't have an encyclopedic recall of this blog?

This is the Chipotle Gingerbread with Cinnamon-Vanilla Ice Cream and Dulce deLeche that I made for Thanksgiving last year.  And at the time, I thought, it was pretty awesome.  But I made another version of it for my Memorial Day party and you know what it was? Awesomer.

What I did this time was the Chipotle Gingerbread + Caramel Ice Cream + Coffee Sauce (So just imagine the above picture, but with a dark brown sauce.)

I didn't make up the recipes, I just made them and put them together.  But I did think of the combination all by myself, so look what I can do!

It was a huge hit. I mean HUGE. People are usually very forgiving of desserts, and sweets usually please most folks. I am used to bringing an ice cream or cake to a party and people being excited.

But I feel like there was some real genuine amazement at just how well these three flavors worked together.  My friend Jan also said it was one of the best desserts she's ever had.  Even a real live food professional, Becky of the great blog, Chef Reinvented, liked enough to tweet about it.  (Yeah, I linked to her tweet. That just happened. I did that. I can't unbecome becoming a person who linked to a complimentary tweet about herself. The slippery slope has slipped. Hemingway-esque unassuming stoic machismo is off the table as an option.)

Anyway, the great thing is, although this is a multiple recipe dish, it really isn't that hard, and totally worthwhile to consider making if you are entertaining and want a crowd-pleasing dessert.

Here are the recipes and a few other tips.

• Chipotle Gingerbread.  I do NOT use the crystallized ginger called for in the recipe.  This recipe fit into 2 12-mini muffin tins.  It is very very quick and easy, and could be made in advance. The actual cupcakes I used were, in fact, leftover from last Thanksgiving (!) that Will and Carolyn had in their deep freezer. 
• The Caramel Ice Cream could be swapped out with storebrought if you don't have a maker. 
• The Coffee Sauce is probably the only "challenging" part, just because it involved the scary caramelizing of sugar, but other than that, it's very fast to prepare.

Scallion Pancake Dipping Sauce aka Condiment Crank

From a recent episode of A&E's Intervention.  This is a woman named Dawn.  She is high on meth and talking about voodoo and bad things that happen in jars.

I watched this episode right as I started on my third batch of Scallion Pancake Dipping Sauce, the previous batch having been compulsively and quickly eaten, and I looked at the sauce in alarm:

Scallion Pancake Dipping Sauce is also made in a jar.

(The darkness of the sauce gives you a clue as to the abyss into which you are about to be sunk)

Well, okay, that's just some narrative tidiness, actually I make it in a bowl or a big measuring cup and STORE it in a jar, but you know, me and Dawn, we're really just taking some poetic license to communicate something about some substances we have some strong feelings about.  What we're just trying to say is IT WILL OWN YOUR SOUL.

Or maybe not.  Maybe the combo of pungent soy sauce and rice vinegar, the pingy tang of the scallions, the kick of the red pepper flakes, the brightness of the ginger and the subtle nuttiness of the toasted sesame seed won't be perceived, by your brain, to be a heady and addictive elixir.  

I mean, to each his own, but I'll just say this: most of the time, I'm writing about ice cream or dessert here.  Does it seem in character for someone like me to be saying regularly: "Hey, let's have some brown rice and broccoli for breakfast?"  Or, how about that on one of the rare opportunities I have to cook for people, the thing I always want to do, I'm glad my friend has to leave early because that means more Dipping Sauce for me?

People's behavior changes when they get into the hard stuff.

And it's not like there weren't signs of trouble before.  Here's my quick history with the stuff, a la Intervention's usual montage:

When I lived in NYC, I was a casual Scallion Pancake and Dipping Sauce user.  They were cheap, they were vegan or so the restaurant staff liked to reassure me.  

I think one of my first attempts to figure out how to reverse engineer a recipe was that sauce.  I am baffled now by what I must have done to try to figure it out.  There were no foodies around then, no google searching.  I probably attempted to ask and got no info from the staff and back then, it never would have occurred to me to endlessly pester random cooking people info like I have no shame about now.  But I tried, I failed, and it added to my underlying belief that irresistible tastiness is something you leave the house for.

Then I moved back to Phoenix, which was not only a geographic desert, but also a Scallion Pancake desert! None to be seen anywhere that I could find.  Maybe not enough Mandarin-cooking folk had yet settled there to start a restaurant.   So my desire went dormant.

Moved to Seattle, found Snappy Dragon, I returned to being a casual user.  The expense and logistical challenges of getting it kept it from turning into a big habit.

Then we had a Chinese-themed book club, and while we were ordering from SD, I figured, hey, why not attempt my own Scallion Pancakes and Dipping Sauce while we wait for it to get here.

My pancakes, not so good, but my sauce I was pretty pleased with.  Some of the gals mentioned they liked it better than Judy Fu's, but I thought, well, you know, they might have just been being polite.

I wanted to try the pancakes again, so I did, realizing SD has a Scallion Pancake recipe on their website (and here's my version below with pics of the method). This second batch of pancakes were more successful.  

I tweaked the Dipping Sauce just a bit, and had a bunch left over after the pancakes were done, and so I tried some on brown rice.

And that's where the trouble started.  Now I can't stop. I can't stop.  I mean, I guess all it does is encourage me to eat a simple meal of steamed broccoli, brown rice and a generous glug of the Dipping Sauce.  

And, I guess it's better than eating fried dough, which, I've realized, isn't even the best part of the Scallion Pancake and Dipping Sauce.  Nevertheless, I must caution you strongly.

Please note: part of its addictive quality for me is the perfect amount of burn of the red pepper flakes.  If you are not wired to feel a happy glow when you eat spicy stuff, go with the lower end of the range for that ingredient.

Scallion Pancake Dipping Sauce

• 8 tbls soy sauce
  
• 3 tbls Chiangking black rice vinegar (I've seen a couple recommendations to select this specific brand for this ingredient, so I am sticking with it)
  
• 1 tbl white rice vinegar
  
• 1 tbls finely grated ginger
  
• ¼ cup scallions
  
• ½ to 2 tsp red pepper flakes
  
• ½ tbl sesame oil
  
• 1 tbls mirin 

1. Whisk all the ingredients together.  Blammo, you’re done.  Store it, and your soul, in a jar in the fridge.  If it goes bad before you use it up, well, I don't know what to say.   Count your blessings, I guess, for your admirable restraint.

Chipotle Gingerbread with Cinnamon-Vanilla Ice Cream and Dulce de Leche

I spent most of my adolescence and early adult years thinking I wanted to be a filmmaker. I went to NYU, made some student films, spent a lot of money on an independent short after I graduated, and then...moved back to Phoenix, AZ and did a whole lot of nothing about it.

I still thought about it, I still made vague attempts to write, even finished another short script and starting putting together the production team before that all sort of petered out.

I wasn’t doing a whole lot of anything beside being a working stiff during those years anyway, so even if it truly was My Calling, who knows if I would have been able to drag myself out of the general stupor I was in to actually make anything happen.

But here’s what my current theory is: I just couldn’t get past that it’s just so...frivolous.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad other people still do it. (Although, other than David Lynch and documentarians, I’m not generally that excited by anyone still doing it since the ripple effect of Jaws and Star Wars put an end to the Golden Years of Films by and for Grown-Ups - aka the ‘70’s).

For me, personally, though, I was just never able to quite recover from my horror at the amount of resources used in the re-creation of reality. The decadence!

That’s what I like about cooking. While it’s a stretch to think of my ice cream experimentation as anything approaching utilitarian, the idea of using my creativity to result in something people can actually eat appeals to the my more pragmatic side.  I like to aim low on Maslow's Hierarchy.

And, as another person who transferred her interest in film to food pointed out, food is also a hell of a lot more instantly gratifying. Not just for the eatin’, mind you, but also for the audience response. Elizabeth Falkner’s background in film is all over her book Demolition Dessert...

...and it's reflected in the name of her restaurants Citizen Cake and Orson.  She speaks in the below about why she loves desserts and why she made the transition from film to food.

I’ve been eyeing a lot of different recipes in her book, but the one that was jumping out at me loudest as I planned the Thanksgiving Dessertaganza was the Chipotle Gingerbread (full recipe in link) component in her Gingerbread Bauhaus. I didn’t want to do the whole composed dessert from the book, which involves pear sorbet, shards of royal icing and pomegranate gel.

But I thought the gingerbread, baked into mini-muffin tins, might make a nice tiny composed dessert topped with a little bit of something like that cinnamon-caramel ice cream we had at Poppy.

I experimented by trying to caramelize the some cinnamon sticks in the sugar in this Chow.com Caramel Ice Cream recipe. I don’t know if I actually caramelized the cinnamon, but I know I didn’t caramelize the sugar itself. Paranoid after too many caramels that went from just right to burnt in some nanosecond lost to A.D.D., I removed the cooked sugar too soon. It tasted sweet, not caramel-y.

Luckily, though, the cinnamon flavor was present, and the addition of a scraped-vanilla bean meant that a tasty cinnamon-vanilla ice cream resulted even if caramel continues to be a wild mustang I am unable to tame.

You know what I can tame, Caramel? You know who plays nice and isn’t a occasionally injurious jerk? Dulce de Leche. That’s right, I am taking advantage of NAFTA and going south of the border for my tasty light brown dessert sauce.

What do you have to do to make Dulce de Leche?

OPEN A CAN. Open a can of sweetened condensed milk, pour it into a baking dish, cover it tightly with foil, set that baking dish into a larger one filled with water, and cook it at 425 for about an hour or until it’s the color of MISBEHAVING CARAMEL.

You can also do it in a slow cooker or go the daredevil route – boil it in the can, risking explosion. (Oh.  Well, I guess this sauce is also occasionally injurious.  Hmm.  Why is making dessert sauce so high risk?)

Okay, so my composed dessert results from these three doesn’t look as good as something Elizabeth Falkner would create...

...but this is the one dessert that blew past my usual underwhelmed response to “New Favorite Thing.”

The Chipotle Gingerbread – which, incidentally, is quite quick to make – doesn't have too much heat, it’s just like a tiny extra kick to the usual spice of gingerbread. The Cinnamon-Vanilla Ice Cream is rich while not being excessive sweet, and then the smidge of Dulce de Leche adds that final bit of caramelized but not cloying sweetness that brings it all together.

And I hate to second guess myself, but you know what might even be better than Dulce de Leche with this? This Five Star Holy-Crap Coffee Dessert Sauce from Chow that I've made before, although it does require the basic caramel sauce process, so it's nowhere near as easy as the DdL.

If you’re not an ice cream maker, I would still recommend trying this. Again, the gingerbread is pretty quick to make, and the Dulce de Leche is effortless. Buy a pint of cinnamon ice cream (if you can find it) or caramel or just the best vanilla you can get and give it a whirl.

Little Breads for Company #3: Crisp Rosemary Flatbreads

Epicurious Recipe: Crisp Rosemary Flatbread

• Advanced Prep: Can be made two days in advance (although it's super fast so not a big deal to whip up day-of).
• Method: Quick bread with a smidge of kneading.

Of all the recent little savory breads for company, the Crisp Rosemary Flatbreads from Epicurious were probably the easiest: no biscuit hand needed and very little kneading involved. Despite the ease, they were quite tasty and seemed to be successful with folks. Other than the fact that you bake them in batches, they are also very quick. Just mix up the ingredients, knead a few times, roll out and stick in oven.

The picture that accompanies the recipe on the Epicurious site makes these look like they will be lavosh-like in their crispiness.

In actuality, they have more of a saltine-type texture, a mixture of crispness and soft flakiness.

Two of the three big pieces I made were actually not particularly crispy at all, mainly because I didn’t roll them out thin enough. I brought the flatbreads over to Will and Carolyn’s, and Will noted he actually liked the almost biscuit-y texture of the thicker pieces. Personally, I liked the crisper ones, but they were both tasty and slightly addictive after a while.

If you think you would also like a crisper texture, I recommend rolling them out verreeee thin, even if it makes the dough larger than the 10-inch diameter the recipe notes. If you have a good pizza stone, you would probably want to use that instead of the baking sheet called for.

I think the addictive element to these was thanks to the large amount of rosemary, olive oil and sea salt in the recipe. I might have oversalted a bit...note to self: sea salt is nearly invisible when sprinkled onto a damp surface, so you don’t have to keep sprinkling until you can SEE it. It’s there.

Other than the fresh rosemary, the ingredients in this recipe are ones most folks usually have on hand, and with how quickly they can be thrown together, this could be a good choice for last-minute entertaining.

Tomorrow: Parmesan Black Pepper Biscotti

Yesterday: Rosemary and Thyme Breadsticks

Tuesday: Buttermilk Biscuits with Green Onions, Black Pepper and Sea Salt