Buffalo Chicken Boxes

Yeah, this was a weird thing that happened, gentle reader. Look, I figured the Pats are probably practicing for the Super Bowl, so I should too.

So I made a trial run of my fave Super Bowl dish, buffalo chicken dip—using the leftover shredded chicken from recently documented chipotle tacos; a squirt of sriracha; and a couple ounces each of cream cheese, crumbled gorgonzola, and shredded jack. I know. Weird.

Then I lined one of these weird little box-shaped dishes that my mom got me for Christmas a couple of years ago with a flour tortilla, and then I added maybe 1/4 cup of the chicken mix and crimped the tortilla edges over it.

Then I baked it in the toaster oven at 350° for maybe 15-20 minutes until the crimped edges of the tortilla had nice brown highlights, and plopped some sour cream and salsa onto it.

I took a risk on this weird little box, but it turned out pretty darn delicious. I can only hope that my other Super Bowl boxes will pay off like this one.

Spinach Triangles and the Circle of Life

Gentle readers, I know I’m not the first person to remark that 2016 sucked. We could list a million reasons, one of which I refuse to discuss because I’m still in denial. But let me just say to all of you who lamented Prince’s passing: That HAPPENED ON MY BIRTHDAY okay, so yeah THAT KIND OF SUCKED.

But wait, this year got way sadder. (Cue your Morrissey album of choice right now, seriously.) In November, I lost my beloved grandmother, Rose, a lifelong source of support, love, and spinach-feta triangles (as if there’s a difference).

From the time I was little, Mama inspired and encouraged me to express myself creatively via both writing and cooking, and breathed life into my imagination and appetite in all its forms. When I would stay overnight at her house, I got to watch the “Thriller” video every hour on MTV, drink Hawaiian Punch from a crystal goblet, eat Clams Casino off a TV tray, and bake cookies with her. Sometimes we also baked wee cakes in my Easy-Bake Oven. Had the phrase “like a boss” existed when I was a 7-year-old girl, I would have used it whenever I stayed with my grandmother.

To this day, my mother remains resentful of the fact that when she came to pick me up after my visits with Mama, I would run and hide so she couldn’t get me to leave and return to our non-cable-subscribing, high-fructose-corn-syrup-based-beverage-shunning home. In retrospect, I get why Mom felt dissed, seeing as how she was raising me and all. Can you blame me, though, gentle readers?

After passing peacefully at 89, surrounded by loved ones and loved by countless others, Mama lives on through years of memories and life lessons—and through her recipes.

I recently made these spinach triangles from her handwritten recipe, interpreted below. They freeze great; just under-bake them a little if you plan to reheat, as per the above picture.

Here is the recipe, as interpreted by me:

Cherry-Persimmon Pie (+ Bonus Holiday Party Food Porn)

Now. Normally I pride myself on making absolutely everything from scratch when I entertain. But there are exceptions.

Look, gentle readers, the holiday party I had on Sunday turned out to be quite the freaking production, let me tell you. I made like 6 trips to the Key Foods, formed and froze dozens of meatballs and phyllo triangles, shoehorned some compound butter into a star-shaped cookie cutter … and on and on and on. No rest for the wicked—you might say I was trying to stave off the prospect of getting coal in my stocking.

The menu, which yielded shockingly few leftovers, was as follows:

An 8-pound ham glazed with molasses and studded with pineapples, with sriracha mayo and horseradish sour cream accoutrements.

Two roast chickens, stuffed with orange wedges and leeks for flavor and (dubious) presentation.

An embarrassment of quiches (mushroom-leek, tomato-arugula, and bacon-arugula, all with Swiss cheese).

A tricolor penne salad with goat cheese, roasted tomatoes, and olives.

Buffalo Chicken Dip

Regular gentle readers may recall that while I have zero interest in football, I absolutely LOVE SuperBowl Sunday, ’Mericker's second-eating-est day of the year after Thanksgiving. Every year I look forward to preparing a hot, cheesy, gooey, delicious dip. And whereas on Thanksgiving you don't really want to take too many risks with trying a new recipe, it's really kind of hard to go wrong with any hot-gooey-cheese-and-mayonnaise-based concoction, so I like to switch it up and try a new one every year. The 2013 SuperBowl champion, as far as I'm concerned, is Buffalo Chicken Dip.

This is a delicious mix of all the flavors in buffalo wings, without any of the extra physical exertion of having to tear the meat off the bones with your teeth. Plus you get to skip the empty calories that come with those pesky carrot and celery sticks. Perfect for SuperBowl Sunday, obvi!

There are a lot of recipes for it online, of varying degrees of ewww-ness (who knew chicken even came in a can?). As I often do, I perused several and then came up with my own based on my research. This is SUPER easy to throw together. I guess you could make it even easier by buying pre-shredded cooked chicken instead of cooking and shredding it yourself, but I would totally judge you if you did that.

Cream Cheese Pinwheels: Yes You Canape!

Normally, gentle reader, I feel a bit ripped off when a food magazine/blog or TV chef offers up a “recipe” that is in essence a glorified sandwich in disguise (*darts sidelong glance in Rachael Ray’s direction*). But did we mention the thing of how it’s, like, 105 degrees in Brooklyn right now? So I’m sharing what-passes-for-a-recipe for the light and refreshing lunches I've been making myself recently. This cream cheese pinwheel is a take on the kind of canapé a 1950s suburban hostess might serve at a Tupperware and/or cocktail party.

This works great to pack for lunch a night in advance, since the cream cheese acts as a buffer to keep the wrap from getting soggy (as regular readers may recall, non-soggy sandwich preparation techniques are a bit of an obsession of mine). You can pack the segments in a plastic take-out container so they look like a cute little suburban-America version of a sushi bento box, and they’re easy to eat at your desk without getting your keyboard too disgusting (also a recurring struggle of mine).

Christmas Dinner 2011: Beef Tenderloin and Nostalgia

Christmas Day, we drove up to my grandmother’s house in Western Massachusetts—where she always cooked Christmas dinner for the whole family when I was growing up—and my mom, the Beez, and I cooked Christmas dinner for the whole family. Though I have fond childhood memories of making E-Z-Bake Oven mini-cakes and baking cookies with my grandmother (I was particularly excited by her pizzelle press), this was the first time I’ve ever actually prepared a meal in her kitchen.

Our mission was to update some family Christmas classics, which include a hodgepodge of Middle Eastern influences (we’re of Assyrian descent—look it up) and 1950s Americana. So, on the appetizer table was pre-cooked shrimp with cocktail sauce straight from the jar, alongside stuffed grape leaves and spinach-feta-phyllo triangles. However, we skipped the canned-peas-with-meatballs-in-tomato sauce that was a vile annual staple of the holiday dinner table, and the Kool-Whip-and-God-knows-what-else-based frozen green pie for dessert. And since Aunty Olga was out of town, there were no Tollhouse cookies for the first time in my memory.

As is customary, we overdid appetizers—but this year we were shockingly conservative on desserts, with only two for seven people (compare with Thanksgiving). For the main course, we eschewed my grandmother’s usual entrée excess (we’re talking a roast turkey, a ham, roast beef, and maybe a lasagna thrown in for good measure) for a single beef tenderloin.

The tenderloin was cooked to perfection (we cut it with butter knives) but a little overwhelmed by the flavor of the smoked paprika I had carelessly overused in the dry rub. Everyone assured me it was good, but I imagine Tom and Padma might have sent me packing for that paprika-palooza.

In any case, here is our Christmas Day menu:

Spicy Lamb-Stuffed Mushrooms

Gentle reader, I would be the first person to say that Thanksgiving is not the time to experiment with new dishes. Duh, you don’t want something to fail miserably on the biggest food day of the year, when a crowd is depending on you to provide for them. However, a dish that The Beez and I came up with last Thanksgiving was a huge hit that became an instant family classic.

Last year we came up with the idea of a stuffed-mushroom appetizer with a ground-lamb-based filling. In a wacky-sitcom-ish occurrence, unbeknownst to each other, The Beez and I both added hot spice to the mix as it was sautéing on the stove top. So it ended up being reeeally spicy. But everyone loved it and agreed we should make it again, and so we did.

After winging the preparation last year without writing anything down, we freestyled it again this year, with The Beez suggesting the addition of feta cheese, which proved awesome. The spice balance is up to you, but these definitely work nicely with a little heat. You may end up with some extra filling which you can save (to reheat and eat in a pita or over rice) or just eat with a spoon out of the pan.

Sarma- aka Stuffed Grape Leaves

Well readers!

Way back when this summer, my birthday was extra special this year because my Grandma Viola trekked all the way up north from Florida by train so we could celebrate our birthdays together. In honor of this momentous occassion, we had a party with a ton of great food. There was lobster involved, so you know I was happy.

One of the dishes we made was one of my all time favorites- sarma, stuffed grape leaves. If you have never had stuffed grape leaves before, well, i am shaking my head. GO! Find them! Make them! Eat them!

Ricotta Dip

Just came up with this quick app that I made ahead for tomorrow night’s dinner, and it’s the easiest thing ever. Spread it over toasted baguette slices (or, even better, flatbread) and it’s kinda like a DIY white pizza. (And this is coming from someone who was never fooled by that “English muffin pizza” nonsense. Seriously, what are we, stupid? That shizz is not pizza.)

Anyhoo, I made this with White Rose supermarket-brand ricotta; the other ingredients give it mad flavor, so don’t stress about getting a fancy expensive ricotta—it’d be like ordering top-shelf tequila in a margarita. (Really? You do that? Oh, honey, nobody is impressed.)