Christmas 2008 in Photos

Homemade salmon gravlox with a mustard and dill sauce, made by my dad. This served as an appetizer for our Christmas Day foodie extravaganza! It was the perfect appetizer.

My mom's mini fruit muffins. Moist, delicious and the perfect bite after a big meal.

Our traditional Christmas eve dinner - lobster and steak. Why have turkey or ham when you can eat lobster?! I've just barely finished my Thanksgiving leftovers, so I'm all about something different for Christmas.

My mom's poached pears, which were served alongside the mini muffins on Christmas day. Light, delicate and perfect.

Here's my Christmas Day plate: Lobster bisque (which my dad makes every year with the leftover lobster from the night before), some salad and a roasted pork sandwich with onion relish on Dutch crunch bread. Honestly, there's really no meal as satisfying as this and I look forward to it every year.

Hyuma, who is officially unrelated to me but is like my little brother. His family has been joining ours for Christmas day since he was 1ish - he's 23 now and that makes me feel OLD! He's hapa as well so he really could be my brother!

My Christmas Eve plate: Steak, lobster and potato. YUM. We generally just eat the tails and then my dad makes stock from the shells and picks out all the claw and other meat for the bisque.

The dessert cheese plate from Christmas eve, served with chipotle jelly and crackers.

Monk and Molly, my parent's dogs, enjoying the holiday festivities. I'm off to Munich/Prague/Vienna for the next ten days, so Happy New Year, and I will see ya'll in 2009!!!

Christmas Crack

Every year, I bake a variety of Christmas cookies to give away. This Christmas, I decided to downsize a bit and just do one, simple but fabulous cookie. When I saw David Lebovitz's Chocolate-Covered Caramelized Matzoh Crunch, I knew I had found my one...cookie.

I changed it up a bit and used saltine crackers instead of matzoh, simply because I like the added salt and thought it would work well with the caramel and chocolate. I also sprinkled mine with toasted pecans. Because saltines are slightly more delicate than matzoh crackers, I used a knife to cut them into squares vs. breaking them off. I'm telling you, these are utterly addictive. And the best part is that they are incredibly easy and cheap to make.

Happy Holidays! (And in the spirit of the holidays, don't forget to bid on items - including mine - for this year's Menu for Hope auction).

Menu for Hope - Prize Code UW28

I'm a bit behind this year but am managing to squeeze this in before deadline: For this year's Menu for Hope, which raises money for a VERY good cause, I am donating a dinner with me at the famed Chateau Marmont Hotel restaurant in West Hollywood. Chef Carolynn Spence (formerly of Spotted Pig in NYC) will create an incredible tasting menu for us - with wine pairings - and you may choose the date/time for whenever you'd like. So basically this is a dinner for one, since you will be going with me, if that is OK. :) You will meet the chef and sommelier as well. We will meet there at the restaurant, so this is somewhat limited to locals (unless you plan on being in LA sometime - that's fine too!).

Included in the dinner will be a box of treats created by yours truly, that you can take home with you.

To bid on this prize, use code UW28. Here are instructions:

1. Choose a prize or prizes of your choice from our Menu for Hope at http://chezpim.com/ (or go to MattBites, who is displaying the west coast prizes on his blog).

2. Go to the donation site at http://www.firstgiving.com/menuforhope5 and make a donation.

3. Each $10 you donate will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. Please specify which prize you'd like in the 'Personal Message' section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write-in how many tickets per prize, and please use the prize code.For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for EU01 and 3 tickets for EU02. Please write 2xEU01, 3xEU02

4. If your company matches your charity donation, please check the box and fill in the information so we could claim the corporate match.

5. Please allow us to see your email address so that we could contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

A Lighter Calcannon

Calcannon is a very traditional Irish dish that's usually made up of mashed potatoes, cabbage, butter and sometimes bacon or ham. It's a great leftover dish, but also one that can stand out as a great side or main course with a side salad.

The the weather cooling off, I was in the mood for calcannon and decided to make a lighter version. First, I cooked up a small head of cabbage and 1/2 of an onion with some turkey bacon in a saute pan until the vegetables were tender. I then microwaved some cauliflower and one sweet potato, and pureed them in the food processor with a 1/2 cup of buttermilk, 1/4 cup of shredded 2% cheese and one wedge of Laughing Cow low-fat Garlic & Herb cheese. The addition of the sweet potato helped bind the mixture; sometimes with pure cauliflower mash, things can get a bit watery. I also added salt and pepper to taste.

I then mixed the mash mix with the sauteed onions/cabbage/turkey bacon, and threw in a few chopped scallions. At this point, you could eat it just as it is as calcannon is typically served in the same way as mashed potatoes.

But I'm a sucker for baked dishes so I pressed the mix into a dish and baked it in the oven for 30 minutes. The result was a hot, delicious, decadent-tasting calcannon that doesn't miss any of the extra starch or fat of the regular version. I was really amazed at how much flavor the turkey bacon added to this dish with less than half the fat of regular bacon (yes, I know it's not the same but in this dish it works beautifully). The entire casserole has 14 WW points...not bad, and this would yield at least 4 large servings, so you do the math!

My Calcannon

1 small head of cauliflower, cut into florets

1 sweet potato

6 slices of turkey bacon, chopped

1 teaspoon olive oil

1/2 large white onion, chopped

1 small cabbage, chopped

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 wedge Laughing Cow low-fat cheese (any flavor you want is fine)

1/4 cup 2% shredded cheese of any kind

4 scallions, chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

After washing cauliflower florets, wrap in a single layer in a damp paper towel. Put on a microwave-safe plate and microwave on high for 5 minutes, or until cauliflower is tender. Set aside. Using a fork, pierce the skin of the sweet potato, and then wrap it in a damp paper towel. Microwave on high for 5 minutes, or until the potato is tender. Set aside to cool slightly.

In a large saute pan, cook the turkey bacon for about 3 minutes. Remove the bacon but leave any cooking liquid that the bacon has left behind in the pan. Add olive oil. Cook onion and cabbage in the saute pan over medium heat for 10 minutes, or until they are soft and translucent. Add bacon back into the cabbage and onion mixture and cook for 1 minute. Take off heat and set aside.

Peel the sweet potato and cut into large pieces. Puree the potato, cauliflower, buttermilk and cheeses in a food processor until the mixture is smooth like mashed potatoes. Add more buttermilk if the mixture is too thick. In a large bowl, mix the pureed mixture with the bacon/cabbage/onion mix and add the scallions and mix well. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Put mixture into a baking dish and bake for 30 minutes.

"Don't Hate the Game" Chili

My friend Rob has an annual chili cookoff (and a summer BBQ) every year, and I enter every year. It's not really a competition; just a bunch of friends who gather for booze, chili and a good time. This year I thought I'd try something really different and make a chili using only game meat. Lucky for me, Harmony Farms is relatively close and sells all kinds of wild game meat. The chili was a hit, and is something I'd definitely make again. It wasn't too gamey, but if you consider lamb gamey, this chili is not for you.

"Don't Hate the Game" Chili

6 strips of bacon, chopped

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 lb elk stew meat

1 lb buffalo stew meat

12 ounces buffalo sausage (I used chipotle flavor from Harmony Farms)

1 large onion, chopped

1 large jalapeno, seeded and minced

2 garlic cloves, minced

2.5 tablespoons chili powder

1.25 tablespoon ground cumin

1 tablespoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 bay leaf

2, 7-oz cans of mild green chiles

1, 12-oz can of dark beer

1, 32-oz can of diced tomatoes

1, 12-oz can of beef broth

2, 12-oz cans of pinto beans (optional)

2 tablespoons honey

2 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder

Salt to taste

Cook bacon in a large dutch oven or soup pot over medium heat for about 10 minutes, or until the fat renders. Remove bacon but save. Add olive oil. In single layers, brown the elk, buffalo and buffalo sausage, but do not cook meat all the way through. Remove from pot and set aside.

Using the fat and juices leftover from the meat, saute the onions, garlic and jalapeno pepper until soft. Add chili powder, cumin, oregano and pepper and stir until onions/garlic/pepper is coated. Add bay leaf, all of the seared meat/sausage, green chiles, tomatoes, beef broth, beer and pinto beans and throw in the cooked bacon. Turn heat up and bring to a boil, and then turn heat down to low and let simmer for at least 90 minutes. Add honey and cocoa powder and stir until well blended.

Enjoy!

Another Leftover Turkey Idea

Sometimes inspiration comes from the most unlikely of places, and this dish is the perfect example. Though I absolutely loooooooove the show, "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" on the Food Network, I'm not a huge fan of Guy Fieri's cooking show. However, in a recent "Best Of" edition of DDD, Fieri showed off some dishes from his Tex Wasabi's restaurant. One of them was a BBQ pork summer roll, which is something I would never think of making but actually sounded good.

Since I still had some leftover turkey from Thanksgiving, I simply shredded it and mixed with some BBQ sauce. I then softened some rice paper in hot water and filled them with the BBQ turkey mixture, cilantro, scallions and sliced cucumbers. Not bad, Fieri. Not bad at all.

Healthy, Delicious Way to Use that Turkey

If you're like me, you are still pretty stuffed from Thanksgiving and you want to keep things light (at least until the next holiday, which is just around the bend). You probably also have a bunch of turkey meat left over. What to do, what to do...

My sister turned me onto this great, low-fat (and happens to be low-carb too) roasted chili bake that is perfect, both as an excuse to use up your turkey and for eating healthy. I improvised on the original recipe and sauteed a half of a large onion (diced) with 1 cup of diced bell peppers in a pan with a touch of water and a 1/2 packet of taco seasoning. After it cooked, I added 6 ounces of diced, already-cooked turkey meat to the mix.

I then got a square casserole dish and sprayed it with olive oil spray. I lined the bottom with six, whole roasted green chilies - I bought a 27-oz can which contains about 15 of them. Just slice on side of each chile so that they'll lay flat and pat dry with a paper towel before putting into the dish. Next, I added a layer of the onion/bell pepper/turkey mixture.

I then added a layer of 2% shredded Mexican blend cheese. I used 1/4 cup plus 1/8 cup of cheese (I did all the measuring to keep track of calories/points/etc.).

After the cheese, I added a layer of chopped cilantro and scallions (green onions). Now, starting from the beginning, add another layer (green chilies, onion/bell pepper/turkey mix, cheese, cilantro/scallions). To bind the whole thing together, pour 1/2 cup of Eggbeaters over the whole thing, making sure to get the edges so that the egg seeps down to the bottom.

Bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes total. I covered mine with foil for the first 20 minutes, and then removed for the remaining 20 minutes. The result was a delicious, very healthy Mexican casserole.

Just to give you an idea of how healthy this is, the entire casserole has 18 points if you are a Weight Watchers member or are familiar with the points system. So each of the 6 servings (one serving, above) has THREE POINTS. I'm not on WW but am familiar with the points system, which is a lot easier than counting calories. In any case, enjoy!

If you don't have leftover turkey, you can just omit it all together and have this be completely vegetarian. Or, add whatever protein you've got around, even tofu.