For once, this newsletter isn’t late because of something I did. It’s late because of something that the internet did. And because I wasn’t ready when that happened, but we’ll blame years of technological advancements instead of my disorganization.
When I planned out this week’s menu – an attempted alternative to the holiday feasts I’ve been making – I thought it was a great idea. Just some snacks. Nothing fancy.
Then I wrote a whole bunch of words explaining how to make the snacks, and a whole much more about why I decided to make those snacks, and generally just a whole bunch of words about snacks which makes perfect sense because snacks are really the best aren’t then and suddenly it wasn’t so simple after all.
I’ve had a lot of coffee today.
And some snacks.
It’s all about snacks. And since it turns out that there’s like a 90% I’m about to spend the next five days sequestered in the house because of sub zero (that’s sub sub sub zero for those of you using the system the rest of the world uses) temperatures, high winds, and something that the guy on TV keeps calling a superstorm, it’s a great time to have lots of snacks.
And then I can make new other different snacks for later.
Sweet and Spicy Snack Mix
Remember back in the day when snack mix was pretty much always something that someone’s mom threw together in the kitchen while you got ready for a den meeting, argued over who had rights to the remote, or complained that Kenny had satellite TV, why couldn’t we? Now, of course, there are a million different snack mixes in a million different absurdly overpriced flavors (spicy, chocolate, fake salted caramel that sort of smells like perfume) packed into mylar bags lining the shelves of every connivence store, super market, and (I have to assume – because it would just be good marketing) dispensary in the world.
They’re somehow not the same.
In the last few years, I’ve noticed snack mix appearing on the menus of a handful of upscale bars and restaurants, which his is a trend I can fully embrace, even if the price tag is even more absurd thank those mylar bags at the freeway stop’n’gas. $7 for a bowl of bespoke artisanal snack mix? You make your own heirloom barley cereal squares? SURE, why not. And I’ll take another hazy pine tar scented IPA as well.
This is pretty much half way between the former and the latter. It’s sweet and spicy and homemade, but at the end of the year (2020, it’s still 2020 right?) that never ends, I just don’t have the energy to be making my own pretzels or … anything really.
Makes a giant bag of sweet salty snackable stuff.
3 cups mini pretzels
2 cups mini goldfish, regular flavor
1 ½ cups roasted salted peanuts
1 ½ cups praline pecans
1 ½ cups sesame sticks
4 tbsp unsalted butter
¼ cup confectioners sugar
2 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp seasoning salt
2 tsp chipotle pepper powder
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp finely ground black pepper
Preheat your oven to 300°F.
Combine the sugar, salts, peppers, and garlic in a small bowl and whisk to combine well.
Melt the butter.
Add the pretzels, goldfish, peanuts, sesame sticks, and pecans to a large bowl.
Slowly drizzle the butter over the mix, gently tossing with a silicon spatula to ensure and even coating.
Immediately, use a small mesh strainer to shake the spice mixture over the butter snack mix, again, gently tossing with a silicon spatula to ensure and even coating.
Transfer the mix to a foil lined sheet pan, and bake for 20 minutes, or until the mixture no longer looks white and powdery.
Allow to cool completely.
Keeps for 2 weeks in an airtight bag, but it won’t last that long.
Brie Baked with Bacon & Onion and Tomato Jams
Like the above snack mix, this is a hors d'oeuvre from another time. Come to think of it, now that we’re you know, “shared plates” or “starters”, “beginnings”, “tiny snackables” I suppose it’s fair to say that all hors d'oeuvre’s are from another time.
Remember baked brie? Again, it was one of those things that appeared around the holidays – mostly in the pages of glossy holiday editions of magazines you read, but never actually bought, containing recipes you loved, but never actually cooked.
But someone you knew always had it – in variations ranging from: beautifully cut and glazed pastry shaped into autumnal leaves and topped with honey, dried fruit, and nuts to “I put pie crust around a cheese. Yes, it’s orange. No, I didn’t know I had to take the wax off. Sorry.”
Like the last recipe, this is somewhere in-between those two, and you could pretty much fancy it up or dumb it down in whatever way you want.
Just make sure to remove the wax if you’re using orange cheese instead of brie. Also don’t.
1 8oz wheel brie
1 package or recipe prepared puff pastry
4 tbsp recipe Bacon & Caramelized Onion Jam (below)
4 tbsp Tomato Jam (below)
1 egg
Fresh Thyme as garnish
1 Baguette, Sliced and Toasted
Prepare or thaw puff pastry according to package instructions.
Preheat your oven to 350°F.
Unroll one sheet of puff pastry.
Spread tomato jamon the pastry in a circle the same size as the cheese wheel.
Top the tomato jam with the cheese wheel.
Top the cheese wheel with bacon jam.
Wrap the pastry around the cheese, pressing to seal the top.
Beat the egg well with 2-3 tbsp of cool water, and brush over the pastry.
Bake on parchment or a silicone mat until browned and crisp.
Serve with sliced baguette.
Bacon & Caramelized Onion Jam
1 large onion
4 pieces thick cut bacon
1 tsp fresh thyme leaf
¼ cup dark brown sugar
¼ cup white sugar
2 tbsp malt vinegar
1 tsp ground black pepper
2 cups water
Finely dice the bacon, and add to a pan over medium heat.
Cook until the bacon is browned and most of the fat has rendered out.
Carefully remove the bacon and most of the fat, leaving about 2 tsps of bacon drippings.
Drain the bacon and set aside for later.
Peel, trim, and finely slice the onion.
Add the onion to the bacon drippings, and cook over medium heat stirring frequently and occasionally adding small amounts of water, until the onion is dark and caramelized.
Add the caramelized onions, the vinegar, and water to the container of a food processor and pulse until the mixture is a coarse even … well mess.
Return the mixture to the pan along with the bacon and remaining ingredients, and simmer until thick and sticky.
Fish out the thyme and discard.
Allow to cool completely before using.
Tomato Jam
4 large tomatoes
½ cup white wine
2 cloves garlic
½ cup granulated sugar
1 tsp fresh thyme leaf
¼ tsp sweet spice, baking spice, or 5 spice powder
Core, and finely dice the tomatoes.
Peel, trim, and crush the garlic.
Add the tomato dice, garlic, and all other ingredients to a pan over medium heat.
Bring to a simmer, and cook until the mixture is thick, dark, and glossy.
Allow to cool completely before using.
Tarte Flambe Gratinée
Have you ever thought to yourself, “I know it’s New Year’s Eve and it’s supposed to be fancy and all that, but I really wish I could just throw a couple of pizzas out on the table.” Well the good news is that you can. No, really – I’m not even talking about this recipe. Order up a few pies and throw ‘em out there. Pizza is delicious and wonderful and anyone who gets out of sorts about that isn’t the sort you wanna be partying all night with.
And Champagne goes with ANYTHING. Just ask a som.
But, if, for argument’s sake you want some of the experience of pizza without the red grease or the flat cardboard box lifestyle, you could try this sort-of-kind-of-fancier flatbread that we won’t call pizza.
Tarte Flambe or Flamen Kuche (same thing from the same place, but different languages from the same place) is an Alsatian flatbread traditionally topped with crème fraiche, lardons (it’s basically fancy French bacon) and onions (which are basically … onions.) Notice I didn’t call crème fraiche “fancy French sour cream” even though it sort of is? That’s because you can’t really use American “sour cream” in this recipe – it usually contains all sorts of stabilizers and doesn’t work the same way. I’ve also added a handful of Gruyere - which makes it into Tarte Flambe Gratinée. Because we all know that means “with cheese” even though that’s not what it means.
Oh, and this really does go really well with Champagne. Or Cremant – which is an Alsatian sparkling wine that has the tremendous advantage of going really really well with this dish as well as being a lot less expensive than most actual real you’re allowed to call it Champagne.
250 g bread flour
150 g water
3.5 g instant yeast
12 g olive oil
5 g kosher salt
Add the yeast and water to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook.
Allow to rest ten minutes for the yeast to proof.
Add the the flour and salt and process on low speed until a smooth dough has formed.
Increase the speed, and slowly add the oil, processing until the oil is fully integrated and the dough pulls away from the side of the bowl.
Transfer into a covered container, and allow to rise at room temperature for 2 hours.
Refrigerate overnight, then allow to come to room temperature again before rolling out into two thin disks or rectangles and topping.
2 pieces thick cut smoked bacon
1 medium onion
½ cup crème fraiche
½ cup grated gruyere
Cut the bacon into ½ in pieces.
Fry the bacon until most of the fat is rendered, but not yet crisp. Drain, and set aside.
Peel, trim, and thinly slice the onion from end to end.
Preheat your oven to it’s highest temperature.
Roll out the dough, spread with creme fraiche, top with bacon, onions, and cheese.
Cook until bubbly and brown and the dough is crisp.
Holiday Ganache Balls
I spent way too much time trying to come up with a hilarious name for this desert/candy/sweet thing,but I’ll tell you the truth, I got stuck on “balls” and all the associated jokes and never came up with anything at all clever.
These are probably truffles, in the technical candy description sense and not in the underground fungi beloved of specially trained pigs, restaurateurs, and chemists making foul smelling fake oils. They’re balls of whipped ganache coated with something to keep them from becoming overly sticky – which is in my opinion, if not the actual technical … opinion … the real definition of truffles.
The kicker? I supplement that ganache with homemade crushed almond toffee. It makes it bettergooder. That’s a real word. I know it is because automobile advertisers have told us for years that around the holidays you can just make up words and they become real things. Happy bettergooder to remember.
1 cup granulated sugar
1 stick unsalted butter
1 cup heavy cream
8 oz dark chocolate
½ cup blanched almonds, finely chopped
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/4 cup dark cocoa powder
1 vanilla bean or 1 tsp vanilla extract
Edible Glitter
Chopped walnuts
1 tbsp dark rum (opt)
Make the toffee:
Add the granulated sugar, butter, and 1 tbsp water to a thick bottomed pan over medium low heat.
Cook, undisturbed, until the butter has fully melted, and the sugar has formed a medium caramel.
Stir to combine (if necessary) with a dry metal spoon, and then add the almonds, stirring again.
Pour out onto parchment or a silicone mat and allow to cool completely.
Break the caramel into small pieces, and place in the container of a food processor.
Pulse until a coarse meal is formed.
Make the Ganache:
Add the cream to a thick bottomed pan over medium heat.
Bring to a bare simmer, then reduce to keep warm.
If using the vanilla bean, slice it in half lengthwise, and scrape the seeds out with knife blade, and add to the cream.
If using extract, add to the cream.
Chop the chocolate into very small pieces and add to a heat proof bowl.
Add the hot cream to the chocolate, and whisk to combine and melt the chocolate.
Continue whisking until a smooth, glossy mixture has formed.
Allow to cool slightly, and the resume whisking as the mixture cools.
The ganache will lighten, increase in volume, and thicken.
To make the truffles:
Once the ganache is cool, whipped, and very thick, add the crushed toffee, and use a spatula to combine into an even paste.
Shape the ganache into small balls, and roll in edible glitter, or crushed nuts.
Refrigerate, covered, until firm.