2009 Wrap-Up

So my Google Reader alerted me to the fact that it's about that time again: time for a year-end wrap up. This has been a year of a lot of cooking and not a lot of posting, so instead of doing a month-to-moth I'm just going to link some of my favorite recipes for the year. 2010 will mark some changes, I think. I'm resolving to post more, and especially to comment more on the foodblogs I enjoy. I've also had some stomach difficulties recently, which means my diet may shift a little bit away from the cheese and sugar end of things. Other than TWD, I'll be avoiding desserts. Finally, I got a breadmaker for Christmas, so there may be some bread recipes every now and again when I decide to shift away from plain whole wheat sandwich bread. Happy New Decade, everyone!

Best 2009 Recipes

Dim & the Dark Cookies
Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies
Savory Scones
See the Top Ten or So Here
Pecan Pie

Cookbook Review: Cornbread Gospels

This review is a long time coming, and I'm a little embarrassed because this is actually the best review copy I've received so far as a foodblogger. Way back in October 2008, I posted about an unfortunate cornbread experience. Soon after, cookbook author Crescent Dragonwagon contacted me about her book, Cornbread Gospels, and offered to send me a copy. I was really excited when I flipped through, because it's chock full of recipes for one of my favorite foods, and I really like the way it's organized by region so you both have an idea of what you're getting and can take a little tour of the cornbread world. Which brings me to my cornbread experience. So, a year later, after law school, I finally got around to actually making cornbread again. I thought I'd use some leftover buttermilk in a recipe, but ended up committing cornbread sacrilege. See, I'm from North Carolina, and I picked a recipe in the Yankee section of the book (technically "Northern Cornbreads," chapter two). The problem is, I've always loved sweet cornbreads, and none of the Southern recipes had quite enough sugar to be satisfying. So I ditched the buttermilk, got some half and half, and tried Durgin Park cornbread. Yes, not only Yankee, but Boston, even. And it was very good. Dense, sweet, maybe not the best cornbread I've ever had, but definitely satisfying. No recipe, because you can get the darned book for $10 on Amazon, and it's worth it. I noticed that Crescent has a book called Passionate Vegetarian, too, so I may have to take a look at that.

Cookbook Review: Vegetarian Revenge

Recently, the publisher Purslane Press sent my a review copy of a book called Vegetarian Revenge. The book is geared towards low-fat vegetarian cooking, which isn't necessarily my personal focus (I care more about all-around nutrients than fat content). It does have a good selection of recipes, though, if you're looking to eat healthy, and nice full-color photos. I tried a balsamic roast onion recipe, which was easy and pretty tasty. I think next time I would've boosted the proportion of sugar to vinegar in the recipe, or maybe just used better vinegar. The onions were pleasantly soft, though, with a good flavor, and easy to eat. Thanks to Purslane Press for the book!

TWD: My Favorite Pecan Pie

I have to agree with Dorie on this one, folks. This is definitely my favorite pecan pie, too. Someone mentioned that the chocolate and espresso and cinnamon cut the sweetness of the pie, which is what makes it so good, but for me it's just chocolate. And espresso. I mean, say no more. It's beautiful just a teeny bit warmer than room temp, with the chocolate still melty. I don't have a pie tin so I made it in a 9" cake pan, and the dough turned out kind of thick around the bottom, so I made 2/3 of the filling recipe to compensate, which worked perfectly. The crust is like one big cookie. It's definitely good, though I'm not sure the effort is necessarily worth it compared to a frozen crust. This would be great for Christmas Day if anyone's still looking for recipes. You can find out how the other TWD bakers did here.

Sage Apple Crumble with Eggnog Sauce

So this is one of those recipes that I made last year and sadly can't for the life of me remember how I did it. It's a combination of a few recipes, I do remember -- one for the apple filling, one for the crumble topping with the sage, and another for the eggnog sauce. So it was really good, but perhaps not recreateable. I'm going to think about it and get back to you if anything comes to me!

Roasted Applesauce & Delicata Squash

Given how much I cooked last year around this time, and given how much my budget is reduced having been unsuccessful at job-hunting for 14 months, I'm taking this opportunity to blog some winter recipes that I made last year. This post features a recipe for roasted spiced applesauce that I found on a blog called my muffin thursdays and a recipe for maple-glazed delicata squash rings found on a blog called chick in the kitchen. I made these both to bring in to an editing session for my law journal, and they got very good reviews.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I think I used pancake syrup or maybe honey for the squash, because I know I didn't have maple syrup at the time. I might try the recipe again now that I have the real thing. The applesauce was really impressive. I love that dark, roasted apple flavor with the spices. I kept it quite chunky, too.

TWD: Sablés

They're far more appetizing than they look in this image, enough so that I ate 15 in two days, but I have to say that the recipe was kind of a pain. I always have this problem with shortbread, where the dough is too crumbly to work with and most of it ends up on the counter or floor. About half of my cookies were pieced together from crumbs, and I got 15 instead of fifty. Even with plastic I couldn't get an actual log shape, and it hardly held together when yolking, sugaring, and slicing, even after six hours in the fridge. The taste is mostly worth it, as I've been craving shortbread forever, but I wouldn't make it more than once a year. Check out all the other TWD bakers.