Holiday Gift Guide

Kitchen Stuff makes great holiday gifts.  We have a few wonderful items we've received as wedding gifts that I think would make great holiday presents.
For the more serious cook :

Cusinart Contour 2qt Pot

This is a great pot - it's wonderfully nonstick, etc.  and the lid lets you drain the water out like the Amazing Pasta Pot on those infomercials.  Also, the pour spout is fantastic.

For the from a box chef:

Smooth Edge Can Opener

This opens cans smoothly, and the lids come right off.  It's amazing.  Totally amazing.  If there is a convenience cook in your life, this is the perfect gift.

For the baker:

Classic Batter Bowl (both sizes) from Pampered Chef

I LOVE this bowl.  LOVE it.  The lid is perfect.  It goes onto the bowl, and locks on and stays, but isn't hard to put on.  It's great for mixing because of the higher sides - the stuff is easier to mix.  

For the wine enthusiast: 

Corkscrew Set

This is a great, cheap alternative to the Rabbit corkscrew set.  It's sooooo much easier than a crummy ordinary corkscrew - it's unbelievable.  

Any specific requests for gift suggestions?  

Butternut Squash Apple Soup

Mr. Barefoot and I went out recently to spend a gift certificate we got at a silent auction and tried a wonderful butternut-squash apple soup.  I found this recipe when I was looking for healthy recipes to eat during the stressful and overindulgent holiday season and plan to try it this week.  It combines leeks, apples, ginger and butternut squash, so I feel like it must be delicious.
Ingredients:

1 1/2 Tbsp ginger root, fresh, grated  
1 medium leek(s), white part only, coarsely chopped  
4 3/4 oz frozen apple juice concentrate (undiluted), about 1/2 cup  
3 large apple(s), Golden Delicious, peeled, cored and cut into eighths  
3 pound(s) butternut squash, peeled, seeded, cut in chunks (about 1 large squash)
4 cup(s) canned chicken broth, divided (I'll be using veggie bullion)
1/2 tsp table salt  
1/2 tsp black pepper  
1/2 cup(s) fat-free half-and-half

Procedure:

Combine ginger, leek and apple juice concentrate in a large pot; cover and simmer until leeks are tender, about 10 minutes. Add apples, squash and 1 cup broth; cover and simmer until very tender, about 1 hour. [I will probably do this in the slow cooker.]

Purée soup in pot using a hand-held immersion blender. Or purée soup in a blender in small batches (be careful not to splatter hot liquid) and return puréed soup to pot.

Add remaining 3 cups broth, salt and pepper; simmer until heated through, about 10 minutes. Stir in half and half and serve. Yields about 1 cup per serving.

I'll be updating as soon as I've tried this.  We'll probably serve it with goat cheese crostini.

The deliciousness

Green beans with radishes

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Sausage stuffing with homemade croutons

Homemade crescent roll dough with brie and cranberries

Mashed potatoes

With a LOT of garlic

Squash Casserole

With cheese

The Barefoots cook Thanksgiving dinner

Recipes to follow! Hope you had a great holiday!  

Thanksgiving Begins

So I received a lovely recipe card box and recipe cards from my sister in law at my bridal shower.  For a little while, I was like, "I have two recipe binders...how could I possibly also use recipe cards?"  Then I started dealing with using several unwieldy cookbooks in the kitchen and decided that I should transfer my thanksgiving recipes to the cards.  

So now, instead of a cookbook or laptop, I just have the cards.  I'm also a sucker for tradition, and I love the idea of having a box of traditional holiday recipes, even if I don't make every one every year.  I also love the idea of handing these down to my kids one day.  This one is for gingersnap crusted pumpkin cheesecake, which I'm taking to my grandmother's tomorrow.  

I found the recipe on Allrecipes and changed it a little bit.  

Crust: 

Ingredients:  

• 1 1/2 cups gingersnap cookie crumbs
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• Procedure:
• Mix brown sugar, crumbs, and butter together with a mixer until it reaches paste-like consistency.  
• Press into a springform pan.  This was really hard.  The crumbs did not stick to my nonstick pan, and it was very hard to press evenly or get a nice line.  This is the first time I've made a cheesecake in a springform pan though, so I think next time will go better.  

For the filling:

3 sticks cream cheese (or half a log from costco)

1 cup brown sugar

1 1/2 cups solid-pack pumpkin (in re-reading the recipe, I used 1 1/2 cans which is actually almost 3 cups...oops)

1/2 cup heavy cream 

1/3 cup maple syrup (remember to spray pam on your measuring cup before you measure this - it slides right out)

1 tbsp vanilla (I forgot this)

3/4 tsp ground cinnamon 

1/2 tsp ground allspice 

4 eggs

Oven at 325.

Procedure:

1) Cream brown sugar and cream cheese together with an electric mixer until fluffy.  

2) Add pumpkin.  Add heavy cream and maple syrup.  Add spices.  

3) Beat in eggs, one by one.  

4) Pour into filling and put in oven.  Cook for 90 minutes, let cool for 30, and then refrigerate overnight.  

Results:

1.) My cheesecake leaked.  I'm not totally sure what this is, but the pan that I baked it on came out sopping wet.  

2.) This is a very tall cheesecake, I think the 1.5 extra cups of pumpkin don't help.  Not totally sure what the crust will look like.  According to the reviews, as it cools, it will continue to cook and also possibly cave in.  

This is beginning to feel like a bad idea. 

Thankful

Dear Matt & Heather: 

Thank you so much for the lovely cheese grater.  We really love it and it was so helpful with all of the cheese grating that we had to do for first Thanksgiving last night.  We had to grate several cups of cheese, and as we all know, fresh grated cheese > packaged cheese, especially when it has that powdery stuff that makes my mac and cheese get all clumpy.  So thanks again! 

XOXO, 

The Barefoots

Tofu alla Vodka

I'm a terrible housewife.  (I'm hoping I'll get fired.)  Last week, Mr. Barefoot went to work without lunch, because I hadn't cooked anything all week.  He asked if I wanted to meet up to go to lunch, or bring him lunch so we didn't have to spend money on eating out.  I asked him if he wanted to come home for lunch, and he agreed.  He works a quick bike ride away, so it was possible and I immediately hopped in the kitchen and started whipping up lunch.  Only...we don't have that much food and I haven't watched 30-minute meals in a really long time.  So I made pasta, with vodka sauce, and then I threw in some tofu and some baby spinach we had.

It was delicious.  I tried to fry up the tofu first, but it was a waste of time and cooking oil - instead, you should cut the tofu up into really small pieces and scramble it a bit, then pour the vodka sauce on top to cook.  This recipe would probably be better with time to marinate, but it was pretty good.

Ingredients:
-tofu (half a block)
-spaghetti
-vodka sauce
-baby spinach

Procedure:
1) Cook spaghetti.
2) Cut tofu up into tiny pieces and fry in a saucepan on medium heat.  Then add the vodka sauce.
3) Drain the spaghetti.  Add to saucepan.
4) Stir to combine.
5) Add leaves of baby spinach.

Serve and enjoy.  Like everything else in life, this probably would be better with cheese.  And some garlic.

Asparagus Frittata

The other night, I didn't feel like making anything complicated for dinner.  So I made a frittata.  We had asparagus and it needed to be used, so I googled "asparagus frittata".  The recipe that came up was this one, and I had everything it needed, except I subbed in some cheddar cheese.  Apparently frittatas can be made with pretty much anything, and they come out fairly delicious.  So I'll be making more, but here is the procedure for this one, illustrated TPW style.
1.) Crack a few eggs.

2.) Melt butter in a pan

3.)  Chop the veggies.   

 4.) There is very little in life that isn't improved by garlic.  Mr. Barefoot HATES our garlic press, but I think it's awesome and I love how quickly I can add garlic to dishes I'm already trying to do super-fast.

5.) Saute everything in a pan.  I found it didn't take as long as the recipe said - I think I only sauted everything for about 4 minutes total.  

6.) Pour in the eggs.  

 7.) Top with cheese, toss under the broiler for four minutes.

8.) Serve and enjoy!