Roasted Honey-Balsamic Tri-Color Carrots

We’ve actually been cooking quite a bit in the new year - I guess there’s usually more cooking going on around here in the winter. Isla has become a great little helper in the kitchen these days. She loves to set up my pour over coffee pot each night and to make her own breakfast in the morning. A toasted english muffin with jam, cream cheese and butter (in that order)! She likes to use a knife, a real one, “by MYSELF!” she warns, if my peering over her shoulder gets too intense. Emmett is taking a cooking class after school on Tuesdays, which makes me so, so happy. None of the kids are interested in watching Top chef with Paul and I yet but there’s definitely growing interest in cooking. Fingers crossed that at least one of our kids likes cooking enough to make dinner for us someday (the sooner the better).

This honey is amazing! It has a strong flavor that is the pure essence of honey and makes other honey seem like it tastes watered down. I’m so glad I have one more jar in by cupboard. Whew.

Getting home from work and getting dinner on the table within the next 45 minutes or so can be tough but we manage with a lot of help from my arsenal of quick and easy recipes, leftovers and pizza every Wednesday night!  Weekends are when most of the more time consuming cooking takes place, but I’ve been finding that even when I have time to try a new recipe or take on a cooking “project” the dishes my family likes the most are the simple ones.  

Last weekend I picked up some tri-colored carrots from Trader Joe’s based on looks alone. I’m so shallow. I didn’t have a plan for them but figured they would make a pretty side dish.  It’s true isn’t it, that we eat with the eyes first? So on Sunday I roasted them in a hot oven before drizzling them with Scottish honey from Paddy’s and some good balsamic vinegar, with just a sprinkling of sesame seeds. They were totally delicious.

Roasted Honey-Balsamic Tri-Color Carrots

Ingredients

• 1 bag tri-color carrots or about 16 ounces of carrots

• 1-2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

• salt to taste

• 1-2 teaspoons honey

• 1-2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar

• 1 teaspoon sesame seeds

Instructions

• preheat oven to 400F

• cut carrots in half length wise and place on baking sheet

• drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt

• roast for about 40 minutes, flipping carrots over once at the 20 minute mark

• place carrots on serving dish, drizzle with honey and balsamic and sprinkle with sesame seeds and more salt

This recipe reminded me not to feel bad about our quick weeknight dinners because those are the dishes my family probably likes best anyway. More importantly, as long as we are eating together, we are lucky.  Dinner doesn’t need to be fancy to be good. So now, my cooking resolution for 2019 is to find more quick and easy (yet still delicious) recipes for weeknight dinners. Hopefully I can come up with at least a short list of small effort, big reward recipes this year. If you know of any, please share them with us!

Is Cake Still Cake When Looks Like Something Else?

Happy New Year! No crazy resolutions requiring willpower and acclimation to deprivation here. And no certain answer to the existential questions that still haunt us all. But we’re not worried. We started 2019 with cake.  Literally. As in cake for breakfast. This brilliant idea was not mine (gasp). The credit belongs to Paul, though I was more than willing to bring it to life in the kitchen.  

We had a gorgeous Italian Christmas cake leftover from our Christmas festivities that we weren’t exactly sure what to do with. The cake itself was light and airy, not dense or breadlike, and it had a wonderful aroma, reminiscent of almonds or some kind of liquor possibly? I wish I could put my finger on it because it was heaven.

Still, after eating pie for breakfast for a few days, it didn’t feel right to eat cake for breakfast for the next few, well, at least not while it still looked like cake. Paul came up with the idea of turning it into french toast because it had that beautiful texture of brioche - which makes the best french toast. I decided to turn it into baked french toast since it’s easier (and how I typically give leftovers the “french toast treatment”). So easy in fact, that there is no “recipe” at all. Here’s what I did.

I took the cake, cubed it, placed the cubes in a casserole dish and let them sit out all day to dry out a little. Then, just before bedtime, I mixed up some eggs (6), milk (2 cups), cinnamon, nutmeg, a pinch of salt and a teaspoon of sugar (not very much because I was starting with cake!) and poured it over the cubes, making sure they were completely saturated. I drizzled about a tablespoon of cream over the top before covering the dish and putting it in the fridge to soak overnight. When I woke up in the morning, I pre-heated the oven to 375F and baked the french toast, uncovered, for about 40 minutes.

The result was pretty decadent since it was, um, cake.  Actually, not just cake but cake plus eggs, milk, cream and a little sugar. But let’s not dwell on the details. The important part is that it was SO good. Especially with some bacon on the side to cut the sweetness. The kids, who weren’t into the cake when it was just cake, felt differently about it as french toast and went to town on it. Which I guess makes me mom-of-the-year.  Look at her, she somehow convinced her kids to eat cake and custard for breakfast and they agreed! They even enjoyed it. Woo Hoo! How does she do it? Again, details.  Let’s not get distracted by them.  Isn’t it more fun to think about the fact that you can have your Christmas cake and eat it too? For breakfast no less. It made a perfect one for our last couple of lazy days home for the holidays. Sure, it’s not an everyday breakfast, but I would make it again in an instant for a brunch or even for Christmas. I can imagine just sliding it into the oven while presents are being opened like I’ve done in the past with these cinnamon rolls. Or, if you must, you could make a nice whiskey sauce or creme anglaise and serve this as a dessert (AKA bread pudding).  That would really bring things full circle. Oh the irony…

Happiest Happy New Year Wishes to everyone.  Be on the lookout for more Irish food in 2019!

Cookie Party

The calm before the storm…

So lately I’ve been wondering if there are any Irish Christmas traditions that we are missing out on. I know I could google it, but with the internet, I always think it’s tough to figure out which traditions regular people really honor. How do I find out about those? I’m sure it would be really easy for me to find out just by asking Paul’s cousins but I always forget. Anyway, I’ve heard that in Ireland people leave a Guinness alongside that plate of cookies they set out for Santa (or “Santy” as some say).  I’m not sure whether this is true or not, but it sounds like a lovely tradition.

I’ve actually been baking cookies like a crazy person in preparation for the cookie party that I promised my kids we would have. We invited a bunch of friends over and set the table with tons of sprinkles, candy, different colors of frosting and of course, cookies. I made chocolate sugar cookies, gingerbread cookies and vanilla sugar cookies in all different shapes and sizes.  Some even had little holes in them so that they could be used as ornaments.

I learned a lot from this experience. Mostly, that I would have to set my borderline-compulsive disdain of waste aside and drink more wine if I wanted to survive the day.  Turns out, the 4 and under set have no concept of restraint - which resulted in a few of them covering the cookies in a pool of frosting and sprinkles until you could no longer recognize what was underneath. The 7 to 12 year olds definitely took more pride in their work, which made me happy, because sometimes, as a parent it’s nice to see what you have to look forward to.  

In the end everyone seemed to have fun. And my house came out shockingly unscathed by the amount of cookies, frosting, sprinkles and drinks circulating. Nothing a quick once over with the vacuum didn’t take care of.  

The cookie recipes came from all of my favorite sources:

• Chocolate Sugar Cookies from Smitten Kitchen

• Sugar Cookies from Stella Parks at Serious Eats

• Gingerbread Cookies from King Arthur Flour 
  
  
  

These two enjoyed the dough remnants as much as the cookies.

All of them were easy to make and roll out. I made most of them ahead of time and stored them in the freezer until the night before the party. It’s important to wrap them well and keep them in airtight containers so that they don’t pick up any weird smells or condensation from the freezer.  I stacked mine in plastic freezer bags and placed those in plastic containers (which has the added benefit of preventing breakage e.g. when you are rummaging around the freezer looking for a frozen pizza) and had no issues whatsoever.

I ate way too many. Still, I know I’ll be happy to get out some of the leftovers to eat with my Guinness on Christmas Eve.