a tropical themed dinner for a chilly gray night

Yep, you guessed it, roasted baloney garnished with bananas and heaven only knows what else. Whoopee.

holiday dinner - not a creature was stirring

HOLIDAY MOUSE SALAD
 
For each serving, place a crispy curly lettuce leaf on each salad plate. On top of the curly leaf, place one chilled canned pear half, upside down. 

The mouse face is the small end of the pear; for eyes use two raisins; for nose, use 1 red cinnamon candy; for ears, use 2 radish slices; for tail, use a carrot curl. 

To serve, set slice of cheese on lettuce and top with mouse.


MOUSE CHEESE APPETIZERS

Ingredients: Store-bought cheese ball or spreadable cheddar cheese, slivered almonds, currants or raisins, fresh chives or scallions; Crackers 

Directions: For each mouse, scoop a generous tablespoon of cheese from the cheese ball or spread and shape it to resemble a mouse (the back end of its body should be round, the front pointed). If the cheese softens too much in the process, just place the mice in the refrigerator for a short while to firm it up again.
For the mouse's ears, press two almond slivers halfway into the top of the head. Next, use the tip of a toothpick to press currants into the cheese where the eyes and the nose go. For tail, insert the snipped end of a fresh chive or scallion into the rear of the cheese.Set the mouse atop a cracker and serve with more crackers.

HOLIDAY MOUSE DESSERT

Do you really need my help for this one? Balls of ice cream or sorbet in mouse-appropriate colors, chocolate chips for eyes, cinnamon candy for nose, almond slices for ears, licorice whip for tail.

HOLIDAY MOUSE MAIN COURSE 

I AM HUNTING FOR A RECIPE I ONCE SAW FOR A GIANT WHOLE ROAST BALONEY.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

TRICK OR TREAT! Fred copes with the Great Northeast Pumpkin Shortage...

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE HURRICANE GETS TO THE PUMPKINS FIRST!

YOU HAVE TO MAKE VEG-O-LANTERNS 

AND FRUIT-O-LANTERNS

HEIRLOOM TOMATO - O - LANTERNS AND GRAPE - O -LANTERNS 

 GRANNY SMITH-O-LANTERN  AND SQUASH-O-LANTERNS

 OF COURSE THERE IS AN ADVANTAGE: NO PUMPKIN SEEDS TO DEAL WITH!

UNLESS YOU LOVE THEM, OF COURSE, 

IN WHICH CASE IT'S A DISADVANTAGE.

and, because one cannot live on fruit and veg alone, here are some SCARY GHOST COOKIES.
I was going to include the recipe, because these things are really cute
but every single ingredient was a prepared food,
many of which contained other prepared foods
and unpronounceable chemical compounds.
Now that's scary.

Scheduled to post while we're in France

mojito report:many are cold but some are frozen

cold
frozen
minty
rummy

really cold 'cause the rum actually froze too!
so we plan to invest in some popsicle forms....
looks like we won't pull up the mint after all
in fact, we may be the first gardeners in recorded
history to encourage it!

Ooops, almost forgot recipe: simmer together ¼ cup white sugar and ¼ cup water until sugar is dissolved. Meanwhile, gather ½ cup fresh mint leaves, ⅓ cup fresh lime juice, ⅓ cup white rum, and 1 cup water. Put everything into a small-to-medium pitcher, whizz with a stick blender till it's a beautiful pale green with a few dark spots, and carefully pour into popsicle molds. Freeze overnight. If using cup-&-stick method, put 6 3-oz. paper cups into a loaf pan, pour mix into cups, put pan into freezer, freeze for an hour or 2 until mushy-firm and insert sticks. I used bamboo skewers cut in half and stuck into plastic straws, also shortened. They worked fine. Then freeze the rest of the way overnight. Naturally if you do this in the morning you can probably serve at dinner.

Note: I just fixed a typo -- recipe calls for one third cup of rum, not one fourth. 

deranged from putting things into suitcases, Fred seeks relief in a giggle...

If you've been following this blog for a while, you'll know that I can't resist scary recipes. I grew up in a home where, if it looked like something was about to go horribly wrong with dinner, the whole thing would be cut into pieces and thrown into a frying pan with sour cream, dill and paprika, and served over noodles. Worse things could happen, and those ingredients are marvelous for the complexion, and certainly more filling and satisfying than, say, fiddly little canapés. Like my penguins (search blog for "penguin").  But what happens when someone with no talent for improvisation follows directions exactly, or so they think, and things still go horribly wrong? Connoisseurs of these delicious moments will be grateful for being directed to one of my favorite sites, cakewrecks.blogspot.com, which is an illustrated chronicle of - well, one awful mess after another. With themes. Please enjoy the site, and the rest of this long hot weekend while I see how many little tubes and sample sizes I can put into a small plastic bag. I promise a picture of my "personal best."

File away for the fall, summer is all too short

In an earlier post this one I mentioned an atrocious recipe called Candle Salad, which I learned from a Home Ec teacher who was under the continuing delusion that she was imparting the secret of opening a festive holiday (any holiday) dinner. For sheer missing the point of food,  I thought this couldn't be topped. I was wrong.

Here is a link to an article article which provides excerpts from the Congressional Cookbook of 1933, recipes and other interesting, um, tidbits, including one for Breakfast Salad, also known as Believe-It-Or-Not-Salad:

Yes, my little dears, cottage cheese, canned apricot halves, banana halves, and food coloring...

On the other hand, if you were having a seated dinner for in-laws on October 3l....

maybe this won't replace the cheese ball after all ...

lordy, I'm dangerous since I learned to do this on the Iphone! In 7th grade I was forced to take a semester of Home Ec, where I learned not to sigh loudly while the teacher was talking. This did not go well. Teacher's favorite recipe was for an "appetizer" called Candle Salad: leaf of iceberg lettuce, topped with half a banana (pointed side up) on a pineapple ring, banana then topped with half a maraschino cherry. Made it for parents to demonstrate my suffering and after some negotiation with authorities was allowed to substitute Tutoring ESL Kids, where I learned some useful words. Anyway, here is a link to a recipe

for a really cute appetizer, and while I have absolutely NO intention of making it, I hope it brightens your day as it has mine.

a seasonal recipe in honor of St.Pat.

4pm. quiet and dignified parade, as usual. Here is my soda bread. After it was in the oven, I read the fine print on the bottom of the baking soda box and learned that the sell-by date was, um, well, over. Then I looked in the oven. Guess what? It didn't seem to matter. The thing was rising like it hoped for heaven. Was delicious with whipped butter, too. Hope you enjoyed your day!

Oh, and instead of ending at East 86th Street as usual, today's parade ended at East 79th Street, only a few steps away from the private townhouse of our mayor...

foodbuzz led me to this seasonal recipe, which I hope to try sometime today. After the Parade. Love pipers, love pipe bands, can't miss them today. That's what the terrace is for! (and why, may I ask, is there no green in the JCrew catalog? real green, that is, not the strange brown-ie colors the military pixies prance around in).

Anyway, news from New York. You may have read that our Mayor, generally an intelligent and soft-spoken type, recently made a non-PC joke about St. Patrick's Day and its occasional aftermath. Umbrage was taken. You may also have read that New York City is feeling budget crunches, just like other municipalities, and one of the money-saving measures put into effect is the shortening of parade routes, thereby saving on police and sanitation costs. Guess whose house is at the new (shorter) end of the St. Patrick's Day Parade. Oh, guess who didn't know Karma is Gaelic for "we don't forget

." Maybe I'll make soda bread - quicker and quieter. This could be a long day. Expecting thirsty company. Let me know if you try this recipe. Me, I'm going to drink the drinkable ingredients and leave the rest in the fridge where they'll impress any stranger looking for potables.

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes

Cupcake Ingredients:
1 cup Guiness
1 stick, plus 1 tbs unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups dark brown sugar
3/4 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 tbs vanilla extract
2 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp baking soda

Cupcake Preparation:
1. Preheat the oven to 350; line a muffin tin with cupcake liners.
2. Combine the Guiness and the butter, chopped into 1-inch chunks, in a large sauce pan, and heat to melt the butter.
3. Remove from heat, and whisk in the cocoa and sugar.
4. In a bowl, whisk the sour cream and the eggs and vanilla, then add to the beer mixture.
5. Sift together the flour and baking soda, and fold in the batter.
6. Pour into muffin molds and bake or 25 minutes, or until inserted cake tester comes out clean. Let stand 10 minutes, remove from muffin tin, and cool completely on a rack.

Frosting Ingredients:
1 stick of unsalted butter, room temperature
3 cups confectioners' sugar
Bailey's Irish Cream AND
Jameson Irish Whiskey

Frosting Preparation:
1. Put the stick of room-temperature butter in a large mixing bowl and beat at medium-to-high speed for a few minutes.
2. Add a few short glugs of Bailey's and a dash of Jameson, and mix at low speed.
3. Gradually spoon confectioners' sugar into the bowl, mixing on low speed.
4. Pipe onto cooled cupcakes.

By the way, if you're interested, discussion of cashmere fuzz, its uses and international implications, in the March 7th post below. Couldn't figure out how to create a link.