Certain meals end up in a pile labeled “for restaurant consumption only.” There isn’t one specific characteristic that makes foods end up in this category; Sometimes a restaurant makes something so perfect I can’t bring myself to even try to recreate it, other times the ingredients seem too foreign or expensive, and often I’m simply confused by the process and intimidated by the thought of figuring it out. Fortunately, this blog yanks me forward, twists my arm, and directs me to the grocery store aisles I tend to avoid.
A couple weeks ago, I needed a quick lunch and ended up having a frozen box meal of vegetable pot stickers that had been long forgotten in the back of my freezer. Since I usually have the attitude of “too refined for thee” when it comes to frozen food, I was not excited when I realized I had no choice but to heat and eat. While chowing down, I realized I was enjoying the boxed food, and not just any food, but a meal that I had vehemently insisted was “restaurant only” for many years. If frozen food in a box could make non-offensive pot stickers, I certainly could, right? Sure, pot stickers intimidate me for not one, not two, but all three aforementioned reasons (restaurant perfection, foreign ingredients, mysterious process), but what could possibly go wrong? Armed with a strong attitude and misguided confidence, I made a detailed list and marched to the grocery store.
This recipe comes with a disclaimer: Neither I nor the boy ate the finished product unscathed. Perhaps a lesser woman would take this as a sign that some recipes should indeed be left with the tab at the table, but not I, dear readers. One must remember two simple things while reading the following: 1) It is essential to think before doing, in all matters of life and heated cookware, and 2) Some of us are more prone to accidents (read: stupidity), so take my pain with a grain of salt.
Those close to me may claim that I’m a bit of a perfectionist. A more negative person may even use the term “Type A,” but I prefer to refer to myself as thorough. Whatever you want to call it, there’s one thing that’s certain: I’m not a fan of shortcuts. This is especially true in the kitchen. I feel incomplete if I use a store-bought-item that I could easily make myself. If the semi-homemade dish tastes good, sure I will enjoy it, but in the back of my mind there’s a nagging voice asking how much better it could have been. How much better it should have been.
Before you throw the even less-flattering label of “crazy” at me, know that there are times when I go against my better judgement and…cheat. Yes, people, okay? I let myself cheat. It feels so good to say it out loud. Regardless of kitchen values, there are certain situations where a girl needs to catch a break. For instance, this past Christmas I was elbow-deep in galette dough in preparation for Christmas day, and knew I didn’t have time for another from-scratch recipe for Christmas Eve. What’s a girl to do in such a predicament? Find an impressive-looking dish that uses simple (read: not time-consuming) ingredients of course, then make the magic happen…quickly.
We all have something that makes us tick. For some of us it’s an individual activity, item, or what have you, for others it’s combining a few favorite things in perfect harmony. The boy, for instance, gets his kicks from shooting at things, specifically deer, but he’s not too choosy. For me, there are several things I love, but there may be nothing I love more than when three of my favorite things marry themselves the last week of December: delicious food, beautiful things, and Christmas.
The Christmas fever starts for me around the second week of November. I resist the urge to break out the holiday tunes as long as possible, but I have yet to hold off until the socially-acceptable timing of post-Thanksgiving. It goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyway) that come the third week of December, this girl starts to get a bit intense. I bake constantly, shop frequently, decorate with reckless abandon, and partake in many a cup of cheer (hot chocolate and Bailey’s…obviously). When Christmas Eve rolls around, my family usually focuses on the stars of the show: cookies. However, this year we planned ahead and had a cookie-baking bonanza a couple of weeks ago. Left with excited hands and no need for additional baked goods, I searched for a recipe that would be fancy, beautiful, and yummy enough to be Christmas-worthy. As I’ve explained before, finding a recipe that pleases all of my family’s palates is no easy task, so I decided to combine a couple of recipes that had been in the back of my mind for months, but had yet to be played with.
A galette is basically a jazzed-up and beautified version of one of my favorite foods: pizza. A homemade pastry crust acts as the base, and curls up over the interior, the contents of which vary greatly from recipe-to-recipe. For my purposes, I chose a few of my favorite, non-dividing ingredients: tomatoes, potatoes, and pesto, with some leeks to support the flavors.
I like to think that I have a pretty good sense of humor. My brother and sister are both hilarious, and as the runt of the family (yes, the youngest and shortest), I’ve spent my life trying to emulate their coolness and hilarity. That being said, there are times when even us funny ones (okay, and wannabe funny ones) need to go for the easy joke. The joke that everyone is thinking, but no one says. Well, in my family we’ve started just saying it, and at Christmas no less.
For as long as I can remember, my family has made the same cookies year-after-year: chocolate crinkles, bon bons, sugar cookies, ginger cookies, mini pecan pies, and krumkake, just to name a few. We end up with enough cookies to live off of for months, and that’s pretty much what we do, except maintain the amount of cookies you’re imagining, then condense “months” into a span of two weeks and you have my family’s holiday food ritual. A few years ago, my sister decided to shake up our routine by adding a newcomer to the bunch. Is it fancy? No. How about pretty? Not even a little bit. Is it even a “baked” good? Nope, it doesn’t so much as glance at the oven. So why did we veer away from our usual lineup for a decidedly un-Christmas-y cookie? In true family tradition, we did it for two reasons: humor and the opportunity for increased sugar intake.
Before we get into the details, I want to preface the recipe by saying that I’m aware that this humor is a bit adolescent. Sure, you would think my siblings and I would have outgrown this phase when we transitioned into adulthood, but the irony mixed with the cookie’s absurd deliciousness have made this recipe stick around. As with most jokes, this one is not without objectors; my dad refuses to call the cookie by its correct name, so that he can avoid feeling awkward about his new favorite Christmas treat. The rest of us, however, roll with the simple joke and accept ourselves for what we are: inappropriate cookie consumers.
As a long-time meat-free, food-obsessed chick, I’m a veggie burger connoisseur of sorts. If I’m in a hurry (okay, or lazy) I will grab a frozen patty, but this is never anything special. When I go out to dinner, it’s a whole different story. As soon as I see “house made” near the words “veggie burger,” I dive right in and don’t look back. While my enjoyment varies with each burger, I always order them mostly out of curiosity. Home made veggie burgers have never turned out really well for me, so if someone is willing to serve me one, bring it on, baby. A cute lakeside restaurant brought it on big time when the boy and I went to Duluth for our anniversary last October. After devouring a “house made” wild rice burger on the restaurant’s patio, the boy mentioned an affection for wild rice, and suggested we bring the “house made” patty into an actual home sometime soon. Wary yet excited, I agreed to let the carnivore in on a veggie burger trial in the near future.
One of my favorite aspects of hand-built burgers is the size, the sheer size that makes me question if I can even extend my jaw to fit its height, but always makes me want to try. I wanted to mirror this element in my burger, so I found a recipe that would be a base, and ran with it like the breezy girl that I am (note: read this last sentence with a touch/an absurd amount of sarcasm).
