Holiday Cooking and Homemade Food Gifts
For me, the holidays are a great time to experiment and spend extra time in the kitchen. If you are one that enjoys cooking, this year I made several things as gifts.
I made about 10 jars of my garlic chili crunch oil, RECIPE HERE. This is a staple in my house. I cannot not have at least some of this in a jar. I use it almost every day, and I put it on a variety of different things. I put it in soups. I put it on top of noodles, on eggs. It’s a really versatile flavor and has just the right amount of umami, heat, spice, and smokiness. It’s one of my favorite things, and so with that I decided to make extra and give some out as holiday gifts for those that I know can tolerate that type of thing.
The other item I did as a gift was I made lots of savory spread, you know, as I refer to it for people who’ve never had it, just pimento cheese. Savory pimento cheese spread recipe. It has become one of my new favorites. I was inspired by my friends, Nick and Davina, who make a pimento cheese that is sold locally. It goes under the name “Don’t Be Afraid of Deliciousness.” They were heavy inspiration, and the big changes that I made to mine over others is that I add powdered mushroom, finely diced onions (we’re talking Michelin-star-grade fine chopping), and I roast sweet peppers in the oven until they’ve charred slightly, then chop them up to add into it. I don’t actually have pimentos in my pimento cheese, but red peppers are so incredibly close to pimento that it works. I also keep the capers in there that they use. It is just a really good savory cheese spread, and I made about a half dozen containers of that to give out to folks at work as well.
Christmas Brunch and Gouda Grits
We had family coming over for a few days and we were going to do a meal with everybody who’s in town, and after deliberating we settled on the concept of a Christmas brunch. This gave me the best excuse to make Gouda grits. They are such a flavorful, wonderful dish, especially on a cooler day. It is a very rich dish, so I only make this a couple times a year, but I do look forward to it every time.
Stone-ground yellow corn grits are the centerpiece to this, and I do need to be specific for this dish. It must be yellow corn grits. In the South, you can find those at markets. Sometimes you can find them in the store, but a farmers market or other boutique-style markets are really the place to find this. They are exactly what you think. They are yellow ground hominy. They take much longer to cook than white grits or even grits (Lord help you if you use quick grits for any dish of consequence). They take longer to cook, but they break down into a smoother consistency. The word “grit” is really taken out of this dish.
They are slow-cooked in chicken broth. We add just a little bit of salt, because the chicken broth already contains a lot of flavor. I add a little bit of garlic and a little bit of onion powder, and we let everything simmer for at least a half an hour before I add in about a half cup of heavy cream. We let that mixture thicken, and then just before it’s ready to serve, I add shredded Gouda. I use probably about six ounces of aged Gouda, I should say, and it is such a delightful dish. It really has so much flavor and depth. For aesthetics at the end, I sprinkle just a little bit of paprika on top of it and then grate over, with a microplane, a small amount of Gouda so that it presents really nicely in the dish.
Leftovers and Comfort Food
Something I kind of invented myself into yesterday is that I realized we were going to have leftovers for dinner, which is great, and I got to use some of those leftovers. I made a potato and ham soup. It is just what you think. Yellow potatoes, chopped up, simmered in chicken broth until they are very soft. I also cut up an entire large onion, finely diced, and added garlic, maybe eight to ten cloves, also finely diced and minced. It all went into a pot and simmered for probably about 45 minutes. Then I used an immersion blender to blend maybe 50% of the potato, along with most of the onion and garlic, leaving visible chunks. I added salt to taste and pepper to taste, let it simmer again, and it was really good. I added a little bit of my garlic chili crunch to the soup after a few sips, and it added even more rich flavor. Highly recommended too.
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Look at that, I’ve made an entire blog post just about food, even though I already operate an entirely separate blog just about cooking food. But ’tis the season, and it’s one of my favorite things to do. I should also mention, you know, the family was great and all too.