Happy New Year!

Baked Caramelized Onion Brie in Puff Pastry

For my Christmas dinner this year I decided to contribute by making an appetizer. Every year I get the same idea into my head that if I eat hardly anything throughout the day, I will be able to eat more of my Christmas dinner. Well the problem with this is that by the time our guests arrive, I am so starving that I am looking for anything around the house to munch on before dinner is ready, which often leads to me eating handfuls of dry cereal, very old Halloween candy (why is that still even in my house?), or just about anything else I can find. This is precisely the reason I decided to make an appetizer for Christmas dinner '09. I wanted to make something special, that everyone could enjoy to tide them over before the meal was ready. My Caramelized Onion Brie is Puff Pastry did just the trick! It was super fast and easy to prepare and tasted oh so good! I was really happy to hear that everyone loved it...including me...who kept going back for more throughout the night...and had more for breakfast.

Tip: Make the onions a day ahead to save on time. Keep them in an airtight container in the fridge until ready to use.

Tip: To add extra flavour to your onions, add a splash of vinegar or wine towards the end of the cooking process to deglaze the pan. Those bits stuck to the pan are the best! Just be sure to cook off that extra moisture.

Tip: To make your brie really beautiful, cut shapes out of scraps of thawed puff pastry to add on top before baking.

Note: Yes I did slightly burn my brie, as you can see in the picture. The oven was being used to cook the turkey so I used my insanely hot toaster oven.

Ingredients:

1 sheet of thawed puff pastry

1 wheel of brie, about 8 inches in diameter

1/2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tbsp butter

1 1/2 onions, chopped or sliced

1 egg, beaten (optional)

Directions:

1. Heat olive oil and butter in a medium skillet over medium low heat. Add onions and cook, stirring often, until darkened. Reduce heat if burning. You want the onions to cook slowly. This should take about 30-40 minutes.

2. Lay out the thawed puff pastry on your work surface and flour lightly. Using a rolling pin, stretch out the pastry so that it is large enough to fully wrap the wheel of brie.

3. Using a large knife, cut the wheel of brie in half, lengthwise. Spoon the cooked onions onto one of the exposed (not the white rind) halves of brie. Place the other half on top. The onions should be in the middle of the two exposed halves.

4. Wrap the brie wheel in the puff pastry, lightly pressing the edges together. Place the wrapped brie on a baking sheet, seam side down. You may brush your pastry with the beaten egg at this point for a shiny finish.

5. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until lightly browned in a 350º oven. Serve hot out of the oven with fresh bread and crackers.

Christmas Dinner '09

Oh Christmas dinner how I love you! Christmas dinner is hand down, the best meal I eat every year...well maybe not this year having eaten that un-freaking-believable meal at the Grapes for Humanity A Chocolate and Wine Fantasy...but still, Christmas dinner comes in a very close second this year. Every year we hold Christmas dinner at my house and invite all of our aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, boyfriends, and sometimes even more friends! My family's Christmas dinner is really special because everyone is involved in contributing to the meal. Pretty much every person who shows up to eat the meal must bring something to add to the Christmas spread. This year there was so much food that my fridge is still filled with enough leftovers to feed my family for the next week...and let me tell you, I don't mind at all!

For our Christmas dinner this year we served:

Caramelized Onion Brie in Puff Pastry

I made this!

Turkey with Cranberry Sauce (See recipes below!)

Thanks Mum and Dad

Stuffing

Thanks Oma

Ginger Ale Glazed Ham

Thanks Aunt Darlene

Spinach and Poppy Seed Salad with Almonds, fresh Strawberries and Mandarine Oranges

Thanks Mummy

Green Beans with Onions and Almonds

Thanks Aunt Darlene

Liver Kreplach and Challah Buns

Thanks Daddy

Scalloped Potatoes

Thanks Mummy

Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Onions and Red Peppers

Thanks Aunt Nancy

Kasha

Thanks Baba and Zhada

Beet Salad

Thanks Oma

Spring Rolls

Thanks Mummy

Blueberry Cheesecake

Thanks Oma

Apple Crumble Pie

Thanks Mummy

Fruit Tray

Thanks Mummy

Raspberry Trifle

Thanks Uncle Ronnie

Full yet?

Roasted Turkey

Ingredients:

1 (around 18 pound) whole turkey

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

salt and freshly hand-ground pepper to season (I roughly hand grind mine using a mortar and pestle)

1 onion, quartered

2 stalks celery, cut into chunks

2 tsp dried sage

3 cloves of garlic, minced or pureed

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325º F. Place rack in the lowest section of the oven.

2. Remove the turkey neck and giblets, rinse the turkey with cold water. Using paper towels, pat the inside and outside of the turkey dry.

3. Place the turkey, breast side up, on a rack in the roasting pan. Fill cavity with the onion, celery and 1 tsp dried sage. Fold skin over neck cavity and close using metal skewers.

4. Rub the turkey with the butter and remaining 1 tsp dried sage, garlic, and season generously with salt and hand-ground pepper.

5. Roast in the oven for about 4 hours, or until a meat thermometer inserted into the breast reads 175º. Baste turkey with the juices from the bottom of the roasting pan every 30 minutes.

6. Transfer to a cutting board, tent with foil, let rest for 20 minutes, carve and serve immediately with warm cranberry sauce.

Cranberry Sauce

Ingredients:

3 cups fresh or frozen cranberries

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

Directions:

1. In a small saucepan mix sugar and water and boil for 5 minutes.

2. Add cranberries and boil gently until their skins begin to pop (about 5 minutes). Remove from heat and serve warm over turkey.

Annual Christmas Cookie Bake

Every year, just a few days before Christmas, my family goes over to my Oma's house to make her signature Christmas cookies. Having made (and eaten!) these cookies for as long as I can remember, they have become one of my all-time favourite cookies. They are similar to the Dutch butter cookies that you ca purchase in tins, but about 10 times better! This may be due to a few ingredients that sets the two apart, but I'm convinced it's because we all make them together, resulting in a much more tasty cookie. 'Love' really can be a secret ingredient, and it seems that every Christmas that ingredient shows up to be mixed into Oma's Christmas cookie dough.

This year everyone seemed to be very busy around Christmas time, so it was just my two cousins and I helping Oma make the cookies. Although my cousins lost interest in cookie making and decorating after about an hour (they found their video games far more interesting), I couldn't get enough! All year long I look forward to our Christmas cookie baking day, so I don't mind spending the whole afternoon rolling, decorating, and baking cookie dough. Thanks Oma for another great year of Christmas cookie baking!

Perfecting Potato Latkes

This past wednesday my friends and I got together for a super casual Chrismukkah get together to eat latkes and look over all of our pictures from Cuba (you may see the below holiday post for one photo). I was the one in charge of the latke making and was on a mission to perfect them! The last and only time I have ever made latkes was this past Passover. My Passover latkes tasted amazing, but I found the process of making them a bit painful. I got very frustrated frying the latkes for Passover because I was having trouble keeping the shreds of potato together, the latkes just kept falling apart in the beginning. It took me a really long time to get the hang of it, and by that point I already had a number of broken latkes. So for our Chrismukkah latkes, I turned to Williams Sonoma to help me out.

Williams Sonoma has a recipe for Perfect Potato Latkes that sounded well...perfect! I gave the recipe a try and what do you know, perfection! I changed the recipe slightly, using their ingredients as a guideline. My recipe serves more people which I thought was important for holiday season. It's always better to have more food than too little during the holidays, and come on, who doesn't love leftovers?

Note: If you do not have a food processor or the shredding disk attachment, you may shred your potatoes using a cheese grater.

Note: You can easily make this recipe Passover friendly by substituting matzo meal for the flour.

Tip: Rinsing the potatoes in water removes excess starch, which allows for more successful frying.

Tip: You may serve immediately, but you can just as easily make your latkes a day ahead and reheat in the oven upon serving time.

Tip: Serve your latkes with my Homemade Applesauce.

Ingredients:

4 large russet potatoes, peeled

2 - 2 1/2 small onions, peeled and quartered

3 eggs, beaten

2 tbsp olive oil

3 1/2 tbsp flour (or matzo meal if making for Passover)

1 tsp baking powder

salt and pepper, to taste

vegetable oil for frying

Directions:

1. Insert the shredding disk attachment into food processor. Cut potatoes into chunks to fit the feed tube. Insert potato chunks into feed tube and pulse to grate.

2. Pour shredded potatoes into a colander on top of a large bowl or a salad spinner and cover with water to rinse for about 5-10 minutes. Drain very well.

3. Insert onion chunks into feed tube and pulse to grate.

4. Pour well drained potato shreds into a large bowl and mix in the shredded onion.

5. Add the eggs, olive oil, flour, baking powder, salt and pepper, and stir until well combined.

6. Line a baking sheet with paper towels. In a large nonstick fry pan or griddle over medium high heat, pour vegetable oil to a depth of 1/8 inch.

7. When oil sizzles when lightly splashed with a bit of cold water (be careful doing this), working in batches, scoop the potato mixture with a large spoon and place onto oil. Flatten out and shape with the back of the spoon. Fry, turning once, until golden brown, 3-5 minutes per side.

8. Place the fried latkes on the lined baking sheet to drain off excess oil. Makes about 25 medium sized latkes.