Kosher-Style Pork Cracklins

I love love love salmon burgers, so when I found a recipe, I decided to try making these at home! They were pretty tasty, but just not the same as when I've had them in a restaurant. I'll have to find out what their secret is.

I also made one of the sauces that came with the recipe, but instead of parsley and thyme for the herbs, I used dill and thyme. The dill flavoring was very strong! Other options suggested were basil, cilantro (ick!), mint (erm...), or tarragon.

The crispy potatoes were quite simple. The bigger they were, the more likely it was that they'd fall apart. The salt didn't seem to stick to them very well, so I just added more later. If you use very small potatoes, they should turn out perfect!

This was my first cooking experience to make it to Kitchen F#!% Ups!

• Salmon and Tuna Burgers (Cook's Illustrated, Summer 2006, p. 54)
• Crowd-Pleasing Crispy Potatoes (Fine Cooking, January 2007, p.44)

This was the first holiday dinner I've ever cooked! It was really the only special Christmas-y thing we did all day, other than some gift opening and phone calling.

I bought the boneless turkey breast at Whole Foods. I just love buying meat at Whole Foods! They wrap it up so nice and will prepare it in whichever way your heart desires. The stuffing wasn't too hard to make other than getting the skins off the toasted hazelnuts. I got to use the food processor, which means less chopping for me! It was strange to wrap the breast in bacon and fry it. It smelled so good, I ended up frying an extra piece of bacon for me to eat while the turkey roasted in the oven.

I would definitely make this again for a special dinner for 2-4 people. The hazelnuts in the stuffing added so much to it. I wasn't too impressed with the Marsala glaze, but I think I'm just not too fond of Marsala wine.

As a side dish, we tried making some roasted butternut squash. Oh that was sooo good! Even though it added a lot of time to the meal preparation, the turkey was still warm when the squash was finally done. The squash was delicious!!! I think Jay liked it so much, not only did he cook the other half of the squash later, he bought another butternut squash for us to eat soon.

Two lessons learned:

This dish turned out looking beautiful and tasting even better! The beef was incredibly (you guessed it...) tender. Very very easy to make. The recipe calls for a whole beef tenderloin (about 6 pounds), and I decided we'd do this with about half. My local HEB didn't carry anything close, so we tried Whole Foods. They only had sliced beef tenderloin at the counter, but were more than happy to slice up a whole (or a half!) for me. It was fun and amazing to watch. I think I picked the end that was slightly thinner, and I think he cut half, although it may have been less. It came up as 1.8 pounds and I okayed it while marveling at the price. ($30 per pound! Woah. Thank goodness it wasn't 3 pounds!) The butcher trimmed the meat well so I didn't have to figure out what the "chain" was or trim any other excess fat.

The Red Wine Sauce that accompanied this recipe turned out delicious! (...the second try.) I was supposed to reduce it to a cup total. I ended up reducing it to 1/8th of a cup at the most. Part of the problem was I tried using a coffee filter to strain the shallots and thyme out of the sauce. I think it just absorbed a lot of it and didn't strain anything. A regular strainer worked fine. (Because the thyme was still attached to the stem. duh!) I was so displeased with its taste and appearance. With the sauce being so much effort and the beef being so special (if only by price at that point), I decided to try it again. This time, I turned the temperature down, too, so it didn't reduce so quickly. Ahh... this time I hit 1 perfect cup exactly! Plus it tasted quite a bit better. While the sauce was good, I think the meat held up just fine on its own, too. (This is me saying I'm not sure it was worth all the effort!)

I tried a recipe for lemon and thyme mashed potatoes from epicurious. With all the thyme flavoring the beef, I didn't taste it much in the potatoes. They were good mashed potatoes, but I think garlic mashed potatoes would have gone better with the tenderloin.

• Slow-Roasted Beef Tenderloin with Thyme, Red Wine Sauce (Fine Cooking's Weekend Cooking 2007, p. 70)
• Mashed Potatoes with Thyme-Lemon Butter (epicurious)

It's extremely icy and snowing in Austin, and the weather will probably last a few days. I planned out some meals and made some last minute shopping trips, so we are cooking and eating to our tummies' delight.

Mmmm... pancakes! I especially enjoy them when they are not your typical plain buttermilk pancakes! Over Thanksgiving, I discovered a recipe for "Multigrain Pancakes Worth Eating" in Cook's Illustrated. Sweet!!

My big concern was trying to figure out the order in which to make the pancakes and the topping, as they both required a bit of attention and time. Jay solved the problem by making the pancake batter while I worked on the topping. I think in the future if I was cooking alone, I would make the batter first, and then the topping, leaving the topping on low heat while cooking the pancakes.

These pancakes are fantastic. I'd even say they have topped my formerly favorite gingerbread pancakes from The Omelettry! The topping was excellent, too. I used walnuts instead of pecans, though. I'm also not sure if I was supposed to put them in the topping or just sprinkle on top. The instructions simply said "Serve with toasted nuts."

The most interesting ingredient in the pancakes is museli!

• Multigrain Pancakes Worth Eating, Apple, Cranberry, and Pecan Topping (Cook's Illustrated, November & December 2006, p. 14)

You know you fly too much when you tell passengers on multiple flights what a wonderful cookie recipe there is on page 126 of the in flight magazine. One time I was telling the woman next to me, and I opened to show her the beatiful full page photo of the cookies only to find that someone had ripped out the pages to take home!

The article has the top five winning recipes of a cookie contest for the staff of the American Way. When I saw the Chocolate Mint Marvels, I just knew I had to make them! My oven was disconnected due to getting new kitchen floors in, so I went to my friend Jennifer's house to bake these. We had so much fun making them!!

I packed them up the next morning and took two plates of cookies to the airport as Jay and I were flying to visit his family for Thanksgiving. We left one plate of cookies with the Admiral's Club staff. They have treated us entirely too well over the year! We enjoyed some complimentary champagne on our way out on our honeymoon and ever since have been greated as "the newlyweds!" when we walk in the door.

I must say I didn't expect to have to fend off as many people as I did from the remaining plate of cookies. From the TSA saying "Sorry ma'am, cookies can't go through. They'll have to stay with us." (WHAT! We can't joke about things, but they can?!?) to flight attendants and of course, other passengers wanting to get one of these cookies. It was sure fun to say, "You can make your own! The recipe is on page 126 of the American Way!"

I made these cookies again during the ice storm and shared them with some of our neighbors. There are four other recipes I still want to try. I googled the name of the cookies and found the recipe shared on a few other blogs.

¾ cup butter
1 ½ cups brown sugar
2 cups chocolate chips
2 eggs
2 ½ cups flour
1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda
3 or 4 packages of Andes mints

Preheat oven to 350°. Melt butter and brown sugar in saucepan over low heat. Add chocolate chips and stir to melt; put mixture into a bowl and let cool. Add eggs, and then mix in flour and baking soda. Chill dough for 1 hour. Roll into balls and place on baking sheet. Bake for 9 minutes. Remove cookies from oven and place an Andes mint on each one. As the candy melts, spread it across the top of the cookie with a butter knife. Makes 3 dozen.

Some tips: You only need 2 packages of Andes mints (unless you're planning to eat one extra mint per cookie made). If you start to run out of mints, you can snap them in half and they look just as good. If you can find the mints with the green part on the outside, they will look even better. However, I haven't been able to find them any place other than the Olive Garden! Also, the top looks best if you try to swirl the chocolate.

• Chocolate Mint Marvels (American Way, November 15, 2006, p. 126)