Brussels Sprouts: A Hit!

Yes, that's right... a brussels sprouts recipe that everyone loves! I have Thanksgiving to prove it. Chris and I tried this recipe (our own twists on a foodnetwork.com recipe) a couple weeks before Thanksgiving and LOVED it. So much so that we actually made it for Thanksgiving dinner, and everyone, including those who do not like brussels sprouts, were all over it! In fact, I even sent the recipe to my brother who made it before his Thanksgiving and he and his wife also loved it so much that they made it for Turkey Day as well. Go figure! I've sent this recipe to my whole family, and now I have been requested to make it for Christmas!

Katie's Shredded Brussels Sprouts

Ingredients

* 2 slices slab bacon
* 1 small yellow onion, thinly sliced
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 3/4 cup water
* 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard (I like country dijon that is more of a stone-ground mustard and still has mustard seed bits in it)
* 1 pound Brussels sprouts, trimmed, halved and very thinly sliced
* 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar

Cook bacon in a large skillet over medium heat, turning once, until crisp, 5 to 7 minutes. Drain on a paper towel. Crumble.

Add onion and salt to the drippings in the pan. Cook over medium heat, stirring often, until tender and browned, about 3 minutes. Add water, vinegar and mustard and scrape up any browned bits. Add Brussels sprouts and cook, stirring often, until tender, 4 to 6 minutes. Stir in the crumbled bacon.


**Depending on how much brussels sprouts I use, I may add mustard and vinegar and taste as I go, adding more until the flavor is right. It's not supposed to be overwhelming mustard/vinegar flavor, but it should cut through the brussels sprouts taste a bit.

Make it and enjoy! I've got references!

Fall Salad Plates

Chris and I are hosting our first Thanksgiving this year with Chris' parents, grandparents and sister. Since this is the first event we're hosting, I wanted to make it very festive so in the event the food doesn't turn out, at least everything will be pretty :)

We have fairly simple china (white plates with silver rim) and an antique white tablecloth and napkins that we received for our wedding that we will use for dinner. But, let's face it, that's a lot of white. So I decided to liven up the table a bit. Initially, my plan was to get some clear plates and spray paint the underside of them fall colors. Aaaand when I went to the craft store to get spray paint, I learned that spray paint is illegal to sell in Chicago, so there went that idea. So, standing in the craft store thinking, thinking, thinking...

Eureka!

Gold and copper leafed plates!

What you need:

Clear glass salad plates
Gold and copper leaf flecks (I can't find the product online, but it was Mona Lisa brand)
Mod Podge
Paintbrush
Bowls to set the plate upside down on
Damp washcloth

That's it!



Start by brushing a light layer of Mod Podge in the center of the plate. It's best not to cover the whole plate because the Mod Podge will dry too quickly. With one hand (your non-painting hand), sprinkle flakes all over the Mod Podged area. Do not push them all the way down, as you will get Mod Podge all over your fingers, and the gold/copper will stick even worse than it already does. If you do start to get too sticky, that's what the damp washcloth is for.



Continue working your way around the plate...





Once you have all the gold/copper leaf applied to the plate, let the Mod Podge dry just a bit, and press the leaf down with with your fingers, brushing off any excess. Then, let it sit for another 30 min just to make sure it's dry, and paint another coat of Mod Podge on it. Cover again with two more coats, making sure to let it dry at least an hour between coats.

Finally, to make sure that the bottom isn't tacky, spray with 2 coats of clear acrylic finish.

Finished product!

An attitude adjustment

I came home tonight...a Sunday night after a very long week at work. I worked all week and then 7 hours yesterday and 7 hours today...I worked close to 70 hours for the week. Oh yes by the way this is Chris not Katie today. I grew up in a household that didn't center around wine but very much viewed wine as a way to enjoy life. Tonight I came home after a very long week with more work to do before heading into work in the morning. I needed an attitude adjustment tonight. Something to transform me from the office to being able to relax at home. Wine, I have found, is the perfect attitude adjuster. Tonight we enjoyed a Vision cono Sur Pinot Noir from Colchagua Valley in Chile. This Pinot was an easy drinking pinot and definitely my type of wine. I enjoy all types of wine but I need fruit. This is very new world in structure and had a very good amount of backbone with a slight amount of earthiness. By the way -- I am not a wine snob. I enjoy good wine but you will never hear some snotty claim of 10 different fruits. Wine to me has good fruit or it doesn't. A good backbone or not. Moral of the story, I would very highly recommend this wine for the $13 we paid for it at Binny's. Come to think of it, everything I've had from Chile has been a great value. If you haven't tried any wines from Chile I'd suggest a pinot noir if you really like fruit, or a Carmenere if you enjoy something closer to a fuller bodied red wine. I enjoy Chile because the wines have great fruit and there is nothing snotty about them...Chile is nowhere near having French or American or even Argentenian status yet. I find Chilean wines to be better than Malbec because they are more complex and a little less huge but with more fruit and structure.

Give Chilean wines a try!

Oven Thermometer: Your New Best Friend

For those of you who know Chris and I, you probably know we have historically been cursed by the fowl. That is, every time we've ever tried to cook a bird, be it chicken, turkey, or ostrich (ok, we haven't tried ostrich), our best attempts have been in vain. Every time we cooked a bird, it was raw inside and had to cook much much longer than the recipe recommended. Like, an hour and a half longer. For a 4 lb chicken, it really is not supposed to take more than an hour total, but we would reach ridiculous times of 2.5 hours and above. And at that length of time, the skin was beginning to burn so we'd end up having to stick it in a pot with a top, and then you lose the gorgeous brown skin.

Needless to say, we were fowl impaired.

But this week, we were finally successful! And why, you ask? Because of the glory of the oven thermometer. Hearing our bird woes, Chris' mom suggested we get an oven thermometer to see how accurate our oven really is. Turns out, not very. For example, the recipe we used stated to pre-heat the oven to 500 degrees and put it in for 20 min (breast side down) before flipping the bird over, basting, and turning down to 325. However, we found out thanks to our handy little thermometer, that when the oven *beeps* saying "I'm hot enough! I'm at 500!", it's actually a big, fat, stainless-steel liar. This time when we were ready to put the turkey in, we looked at the thermometer and it said 425. That's right, 425, and the oven claimed it was at 500. Granted, we tried to give it the benefit of the doubt, waiting a couple more minutes. It slowly climbed it's way up to 450, finally halting there. We ended up having to turn the oven up to 550 to get it to keep heating up. We continued this game of toying with the temperature on the oven to get it to what it actually needed to be inside throughout the cooking process. 350 when we wanted 325, 550, when we wanted 500. Regardless, thanks to our thermometer, we finally successfully cooked a bird, and it was moist and delicious, just like the recipe said it should be.

So, moral of the story, don't trust your oven. It may be a big fat liar.