Holiday Gift Guide, 2022, Part 2

I'm thinking that I should have made this food gift guide part 1 and the appliances part 2, just so I could title this post Gift Guide Part 2: Electric Boogaloo. And if you don't get that reference, you're probably not as old and decrepit as we are.

Sigh.

Anyhoo...let us proceed, shall we? 

I discovered a while back that a good gift for the person "who has everything" is food. We all need to eat. Some of us have dietary restrictions and need special products. Others of us are snackaholics. Still others are just weirdos. I'd give my Dad a half dozen jars of jams and preserves for Christmas because he was fond of eating them straight from the jar with a spoon. I enjoy receiving food gifts because once they're consumed, I can just recycle the jar or wrapper and there's nothing left to clutter the house--unlike books (which we have stacked in piles here and there), "collectibles" (ahem, Neal's action figure collection), mountains of craft supplies, and tchotchkes like candles, photo frames, and single-function kitchen gadgets like quesadilla makers (an actual thing that we actually received from an actual friend). Want to give me a gift that will make me smile? Send me a box of See's caramels. 

Gifts for People Who Drink

I don't mean boozers, necessarily, but people who like to drink all sorts of drinks. But yes, booze, too. 

ROOT 23 makes tasty simple syrups that can be used in cocktails, of course, but also poured on ice cream or in coffee or combined with a little seltzer to create a homemade soda. I'm partial to the Yuzu Citrus flavor, but Pear Rosemary is also nice.

 

Beetology, Wonder Melon, and Wonder Lemon are tasty juices that are certainly drinkable on their own, but also make fine cocktail mixers. The cucumber version of Wonder Melon also makes a tasty gazpacho when added to a blender full of cucumbers and roasted red bell peppers seasoned with sherry vinegar and salt. You can get packs of 9 bottles at Amazon, but if you just want to try one or two, I've seen them at Giant supermarkets.

Fancy fizzy water subscriptions might be a nice gift, too. I like Aura Bora.

And yes, fine, your favorite liquor emporium might offer up a ton of gifts for family members. I could use a bottle of Amaretto d'Amore, and would love anything from Eden Ciders.

Gifts for People Who Like Hot Stuff

My friend Laurie gave me a bottle of TRUFF hot sauce a couple years ago. She's a fan of hot sauce in general, and a fan of this stuff in particular. I like hot stuff, too. Now, I'm going to say that the black label TRUFF isn't super hot. But if you like a gentle warmth, and the flavor of truffle oil, you might enjoy it. There is a red label version that is hotter, though I haven't tried that one. 

This sauce is a littler thicker and sweeter than most hot sauces, so to me, it's like the best kind of ketchup. I like putting it on my scrambled eggs, and it's fantastic on french fries and burgers and anything else you might put ketchup on. Also, it's a perfect sauce for buffalo wings. Man, I'm drooling at the thought of that. (I haven't eaten dinner yet and I am hungry. Not the best time to write food blog posts.)

Don't discount Old Bay Hot Sauce, which might be inexpensive at ~$4 per bottle. The stuff flew off the shelves when it was introduced a couple years ago, and with good reason. It tastes like Old Bay, the beloved seafood seasoning of the Mid-Atlantic region. 

Then there's the world of chili crisp/chili crunch, which I plan to cover in an upcoming post. One of my favorites is made by a newish brand called Oomame, which makes the increasingly popular, originally Chinese, condiment with flavors from other lands, like Morocco, India, and Mexico. China too, but Mexico's the best one. Dave Chang's Momofuku restaurant/tv/cookbook empire now includes food products like soy sauce and dry noodles, but they also have multiple versions of chili crunch, including extra hot and truffle.

Mighty Sesame produces various tahini-based products, including a spicy tahini that is no joke. It makes a mighty fine spicy hummus but can also add needed oomph to avocado toast.

Gifts for People Who Avoid Gluten

Absolutely! gluten free crackers and snacks are not only gluten free, but also grain free. But rather than using almond flour, Absolutely! uses potato and tapioca starches, so their crackers are light and crispy and low in calories. Their snacks include coconut macaroons, coconut chews, stacked potato crisps (think Pringles, but gluten free), and even cauliflower crust pizzas. We are a cheese-loving household, so I'm always thrilled to find yet another brand of tasty gf crackers to go with.

Tate's Bake Shop makes the best gluten-free chocolate chip cookies. Honestly, they taste pretty close to homemade toll house cookies, without the gluten. I love them, and even before I started avoiding gluten, I preferred Tate's gf version to other commercial cookies. They have a variety pack that is calling my name.

Another favorite gluten-free snack that also comes in non-gf flavors is Sheila G's Gluten Free Brownie Brittle. So yummy! The thin cracker-like cookies remind me of the crispy sides of a pan of homemade brownies. I've tried all the flavors, thanks to the annual Summer Fancy Food Show, and to be very honest, the gluten free ones are my absolute faves. I finished off a bag of the dark chocolate sea salt flavor as I was typing this post. ::::brushes away chocolate crumbs from mousepad::::

I also love the gf crackers from Hungry Bird Eats.

General Savory Gift Items

Oryx Desert Salt is an unrefined salt from the Kalahari Desert region that has no additives or non-caking agents. It's harvested from a 55-million-ton underground salt lake and has a clean salt flavor. The glass container with ceramic grinder is refillable 10 or more times, making it more environmentally friendly than the typical supermarket salt grinders. They have pepper, too, and both have become fixtures on our dining table. 

I hope I don't have to remind you that Nuts.com has tons of fine snacky items and nuts. My favorite snack is the plaintain chips, and I'm partial to their gluten free brownie mix. Buy a basket, fill it with bags of nuts, and put a bow on it.

General Sweet Gift Items

I've been buying this particular brand of Pumpkin Panettone as a birthday gift to myself for the last couple of years. It's super moist, and the pumpkin filling only adds to the moisture. It's become our traditional Thanksgiving day breakfast. Ordinarily, I make french toast with leftover panettone, but this has far too much filling for that sort of thing. It doesn't get stale fast, so it doesn't matter if it takes a week to finish.

Who wouldn't love a 2.2 lb jar of Nutella? 

If you've never baked your own gingerbread house because you don't like gingerbread cookies, you may like making one with chocolate Oreos instead. This Oreo gingerbread house kit looks like it might be a lot of fun for the kiddos.

Also, I can't say enough good things about Yummy Bazaar, a mail order food company based in South Jersey. They have a wide variety of international foods all year 'round, but right now they are offering Italian and German holiday breads like Panettone and Stollen in many flavors. And they have all the flavors of Milka and Ritter Sport candy bars!

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Foodie Book Review: Cake, I Love You

I wish I had more time to bake, because I would make every single one of the cakes in Jill O'Connor's new book, Cake, I Love You: Decadent, Delectable, and Do-able Recipes. Every. Single. One.

My birthday was a week ago, and I chose a recipe from Cake, I Love You as my special cake. I was sick, so Mr Minx put it together for me and did a smashing job. It involved a brownie-like nearly-flourless chocolate cake, chocolate mousse, chocolate sauce, and candied nuts. It was everything a sick person could want on a birthday or any other day of the year. Funny thing about this recipe, though it had four separate components and involved 24-ounces of chocolate, I didn't feel that it was overly involved nor expensive to make. Oh yeah, and it had a lot of booze in it, which also made it great. The only thing missing was some boozy whipped cream to dollop on top.

I'm looking forward to trying more recipes from Cake, I Love You and might just whip a few somethings up for the various holiday parties coming up in the next month or so. In the meantime, here's the recipe for the cake shown above.

If you need to buy a holiday gift for someone who enjoys baking, I highly recommend this book.

Heartless Bastard Break-Up Cake

If broken hearts have an edible remedy, this is it—a little chocolate, a little booze, with a few crunchy bar nuts thrown in for good measure. The cake is easy to prepare, but baking it is absorbing enough to distract from weightier woes. You can use the combination of spirits I suggest, or just choose one or two of your favorites to make things easier. I love the texture and added zing from the bar nuts, but go ahead and skip them if the added complication causes distress.

Serves 6 to 8 (on a good day)/ Serves 1 (on a bad day)

Quickie Milk-Chocolate Mousse:
12 oz [340 g] milk chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup [240 ml] heavy cream
2 Tbsp chocolate cream liqueur (such as Godiva or Mozart)
2 Tbsp bourbon, dark rum, or Irish whiskey

Boozy Chocolate Sauce:
3 to 4 Tbsp sugar
1/3 cup [80 ml] brewed coffee
2 Tbsp unsalted butter
6 oz [170 g] coarsely chopped semisweet chocolate, or chocolate chips (56 % to 62 %
cacao)
1 Tbsp Irish whiskey
1 Tbsp dark rum
1 Tbsp chocolate cream liqueur (such as Godiva or Mozart )

Sweet-and- Spicy Bar Nuts:
1 cup [140 g] unsalted fancy mixed nuts (any mixture of pecan halves, whole almonds,
cashews, and pistachios)
1 Tbsp salted butter, melted
2 Tbsp sugar
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1 Tbsp Irish whiskey or bourbon
1/4 tsp Maldon sea salt for sprinkling

Cake Batter:
6 oz [170 g] coarsely chopped dark chocolate (60% to 62% cacao)
3/4 cup [165 g] unsalted butter
3/4 cup [150 g] sugar
3 eggs, separated, plus 1 egg yolk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 Tbsp Irish whiskey or dark rum, or a combination
1/3 cup [45 g] all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp fine sea salt

To make the chocolate mousse: Place the chopped milk chocolate in a medium bowl. In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, warm the cream until very hot and small bubbles start to form around the edges of the pan. Just before the cream comes to a boil, pour it over the milk chocolate. Let the mixture sit for 1 minute for the chocolate to soften, then add the chocolate liqueur and bourbon and whisk until smooth. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate until very cold, at least 2 or 3 hours or up to overnight. If you don’t want to wait, pop the chocolate cream into the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, just until very cold (but not frozen.). While the chocolate cream is chilling, make the Boozy Chocolate Sauce, the bar nuts, and the cake.

To make the sauce: Combine the sugar, coffee, and butter in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir until the sugar dissolves and the butter melts. Reduce the heat to low and add the chocolate, stirring constantly until the chocolate melts and the mixture is smooth. Stir in the whiskey, dark rum, and chocolate liqueur and whisk until smooth. Remove from heat and set aside to cool slightly to room temperature.

To make the bar nuts: Position a rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350°F [180°C].

In a medium bowl, toss together the nuts, melted butter, sugar, cayenne, and whiskey. Spread in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet and toast in the oven for 6 to 8 minutes, stirring halfway through. Remove the nuts from the oven and transfer to a medium bowl. Crush the Maldon Salt with your fingertips, sprinkle over the nuts, and toss to combine.

To make the cake: Position a rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 325°F [165°C]. Coat a 9-in [23-cm] round or square cake pan with nonstick cooking spray and line the bottom with parchment paper.

In a microwave-safe bowl, combine the chocolate, butter, and sugar. Heat on high for 1 minute. Stir, return the bowl to the microwave, and heat on high for 1 minute longer. Stir until the chocolate and butter are completely melted and the mixture is smooth. Whisk the egg yolks, one at a time, into the warm chocolate mixture. Stir in the vanilla and bourbon. Sift the flour and fine sea salt into the chocolate mixture and gently fold in by hand, using a rubber or silicone spatula, just until smooth.

Place the egg whites in the medium bowl. With an electric hand mixer set on low speed, beat the egg whites until they are opaque and frothy. Increase the mixer to medium-high speed and beat until they form soft, fluffy peaks and triple in volume, 2 to 3 minutes. With a rubber or silicone spatula, fold one-third of the whites into the chocolate batter to lighten it, and then gently fold in the remaining egg whites, taking care not to deflate them. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan, and spread evenly with a spatula.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until a wooden skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out with moist, fudgy crumbs clinging to it.

To finish the cake: Transfer the cake pan to a wire rack and let cool for 15 minutes. Invert the cake onto a serving plate, peel off the parchment paper, and let cool completely. The cake may sink slightly in the center.

Right before serving, whip the chilled chocolate mousse with an electric mixer set on low speed just until it holds soft peaks. Spoon the mousse over the top of the chocolate cake, mounding it in the center. Drizzle with the Boozy Chocolate Sauce, and sprinkle with a few coarsely chopped sweet-and- spicy bar nuts. Devour.

Can’t finish it all by yourself? Refrigerate any remaining cake for up to 2 days.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Cottage Cheesecake

Cottage Cheese. You all know what I'm talking about. No, not the unattractive dimply stuff in our thighs. Rather, the stuff diner menus include in what they inexplicably refer to as a "diet plate," along with a bare hamburger patty and some iceberg lettuce. Or the white lumpy stuff that my mother-in-law ate on matzoh crackers with a touch of apple butter. Cottage cheese was once a popular food, but these days, the salty curds-and-cream substance seems more like punishment. The last time I tried supermarket cottage cheese, I gagged.

Of course, I once felt the same way about yogurt, and now I eat a ton of it.

Earlier in the year, at the Fancy Food Show, I tasted a new brand of cottage cheese. I'll try anything once, even camel milk and tortilla chips made with cricket flour. Expecting the same chalky curds in mucus-y sauce that I had eaten in my youth, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the curds were tender and the sauce binding them together was more like sweet cream. It was tasty. I liked it.

So when I received an e-mail from Muuna Cottage Cheese, asking if I'd be willing to try their products and write about them, I said, "sure." As it turned out, I had seen Muuna at the local grocery store just that week and had purchased the mango flavor. It was tasty. I liked it.

Muuna sent us a great box of cottage cheese goodness - 5.3-ounce cups of all five flavors (blueberry, strawberry, peach, mango, and pineapple) plus a cup of the lowfat plain. I tucked into the flavored stuff immediately, and found that while pineapple and mango were pretty good, blueberry and strawberry were even better. However, I wasn't sure I was ready to eat the plain lowfat cottage cheese on its own. So I made cheesecake with it. Pumpkin cheesecake. Because fall. Oh, and since I only had 5 ounces of cottage cheese to work with, I made minis.

There was still a bit of trepidation involved. I am a fan of smooth cheesecakes. I don't like the oddly dry texture of ricotta cheesecake, and I have never liked the old Baltimore favorite smearcase, which was commonly made with cottage cheese. So I popped the Muuna into the mini prep and gave it a whirl.

The result was an incredibly smooth cream, the texture of my favorite Australian-style yogurt. I added cream cheese, pumpkin, and spices, poured the mixture into graham cracker crusts, and popped them in the oven.

They were incredible. Seriously. I like smooth-textured cheesecakes that aren't overly-cheesy. These little babies were perfect, IMHO. Very pumpkin-y, very smooth, not too dense or cheesy. One 4-inch cheesecake was the perfect size to split with Mr Minx.

I was so pleased with the results and the texture of the blended cottage cheese, I think I might try a version without using any cream cheese at all. Maybe even a smearcase-style cake. Maybe.

Mini Pumpkin Cheesecakes for Two
I call for a mini prep to whiz the cottage cheese because it seems silly to dirty a big food processor with this ridiculously small amount of batter. If that's all you have, however, then use it. A blender would work, too. I find the Cuisinart Mini-Prep's 3-cup size is just perfect for small jobs like hummus and pesto, and it's small enough to leave on the counter at all times. Amazon has it for around $35, and I have more than gotten my money's worth.

For the crust:
1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs (I used crushed Teddy Grahams)
2 heaped tablespoons toasted unsalted pumpkin seeds (pepitas), ground in a mini prep or with a mortar and pestle if you're old fashioned
Pinch brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter, melted

For the filling:
1 (5.3 ounce) container of Muuna lowfat plain cottage cheese
1/4 cup pumpkin puree
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Pinch salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
1 egg

To make the crust: Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Place the crust ingredients in a zip-top sandwich bag. Close the bag and squish the ingredients around until everything is coated with the butter. Dump the bag into two 4-inch springform pans and pat into an even layer, coming a little up the sides. Bake for 7 minutes, then remove and allow to cool to room temperature.

To make the filling: Put the cottage cheese in the bowl of a mini-prep food processor and pulse until the cheese has been pureed. Add the pumpkin, sugar, spices, salt, and vanilla and blend well. Scrape mixture into a bowl and stir in the softened cream cheese, then beat in the egg until everything is well combined.

Pour filling into prepared pans and bake at 350° for 40-45 minutes, or until puffed and set. The middle might jiggle a wee bit but should not be liquidy. If it is, bake it for an additional 5 minutes. Cool cakes on a rack. When cool, loosen the edges with a knife before releasing the sides of the pan. Wrap and foil and refrigerate until cold.

Serve topped with whipped cream.

Serves 4

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $ at no cost to you! Please buy!



Posted on Minxeats.com.