Tag: baking

King Cake from Last night’s Mardi gras party in KCMO:

22 guests chowed down on Praline bacon, BBQ shrimp, muffaletta olive salad bruschetta, spinach salad with tomato, red onion dressed with creole vinaigrette, shrimp creole over rice, onion and tomato pie, cheese souffle, sweet potatoes with cognac and pear, garlic cheese grits, king cake and bananas Foster… and much wine, beer, champagne and absinthe Suissesse.

Here’s the King Cake:
Last night's King Cake!

Maranitos y Panaderias

I had forgotten how lacking RVA was in regards to pan dulce. LA SABROSITA (on Midlothian) uses that horrid palm oil shortening and much of the pan dulce is shipped in from elsewhere.

Not so in KCMO & KCKS. Each panaderia has its own take on the maranito (or ginger pig). The taste is much the same, but each bakery produces a cookie with a different texture, shape, or glaze.

Here’s one from the La Reyna Bakery on Kansas Street in the Argentine (the actual name since there used to be a silver smelter here) neighborhood in Kansas City, Kansas.

maranito
La Reyna's take on the maranito..it's quite thick. Some of these bakeries use lard as shortening. Bless their hearts.

 

The taquerias are also quite diverse in their takes on such fillings as carne al pastor. I shall report on this later.

Bringing the KitchenAid to KCMO

Yes. It’s been decided. I will bring the KitchenAid to our new home in Kansas City, Missouri. It will save those of us afflicted with carpal tunnel and I will be able to make sausages. Hurrah!

Italian creche
From the Christmas decorations in the foyer of the Nelson-Atkins Museum

From a traditional Neapolitan presipio. I can’t find the caganer, though.

Let the revels commence!

A couple of apple tarts

Oona made apple tarts yesterday and glazed them with apricot jam thinned with rum. They are very, very good. She used the Jacques Pepin recipe, more or less.

We also cooked a roasting hen, mashed sweet potatoes with chipotle, asparagus, fresh sugar snap peas, and a salad with frisee, boston, artichoke hearts, & tomatoes. This was with a nice pinot grigio from Once Upon A Vine South.

The larger tart:

tart1
Half of the larger apple tart.

The smaller tart:

tart3
The smaller of the two tarts.

Canned Biscuits are awful!

Canned biscuits are a joke… come on,  are y’all that cooking-impaired? And this did not come out of Men’s Health or Cooking Lite. What ever happened to the oral tradition? Didn’t yer Mamas teach you nothin’?

Oona’s biscuit recipe:

Mix together
2c.flour
1/2 tsp salt
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp sugar
Cut in 1/2 c shortening with pastry blender.

Add 2/3 c of milk, Stir well, turn out on floured board,
knead lightly.
Roll dough 1/2 ” thick, cut in rounds.
Bake on ungreased sheet at 450 F for 10-12 minutes.

Try cooking these in a dutch oven, over coals. With some mustang grape jelly.