Fourth day into the new year and we are sitting in the house with piles of snow outside warming up after the final round of shoveling. Feels like deja vu from all the storms we had last February. While my kids play bowling on the Wii and my husband is working from home, I am taking a few minutes to give you an update on my cooking bucket list of 2013…oh wait, Neil wants milk and Karina already wants a snack…So back to the bucket list…What’s that Paul? You want some juice?…and this is why I haven’t written a blog in a few months. If I get a chance before complete meltdowns from cabin fever occur, I also want to write my goals for my 2014 cooking bucket list and some new projects.
2013 Cooking Bucket list – COMPLETE!* (and I did 5 of them in December again)
1. Boerevors sausage (South African farmer’s sausage)
I made 5 batches of this sausage tweaking the recipe each time. Over the holidays my dad and I made the best batch so far! That recipe will be a family secret for now 🙂
2. Souffle
I made a chocolate souffle using Martha Stewart’s recipe as a guide. Didn’t rise as much as I wanted it to, but it was gone in 10 minutes!
3. Melk tert (a South African milk tart)
I used my mother’s recipe and it was delicious. Instead of making a crust, I used the mini phyllo shells, which got a little soggy in the fridge overnight. Next time I would either serve them immediately or use the crust in the recipe if making ahead.
4. Pasta
I ended up make canneloni and filling it with ricotta and spinach and serving with tomato sauce. Delicious! Not as thin as they would be had a I used a pasta machine, but thin enough. Karina and I rolled and rolled and rolled until thin. I made a version of a dish I had last year when I went to Mario Batali’s Eatly in NYC.
5. Carbonara
This was delicious! The whole family loved it. I mean, bacon, eggs, cheese, peas and pasta. You really can’t go wrong. Traditional is with spaghetti or linguine noodles but the kids chose the orecchiette.
6. Filet a whole fish
I cleaned and filleted a red snapper. It wasn’t pretty, but I did it and turned it into the most delicious ceviche!
7. Ceviche
This was my favorite. “Cooked” the snapper in lime juice for 4 hours and tossed it with avocado, tomatoes, a little red onion, olive oil and cilantro and ate it with tortilla chips. LOVED IT! Karina even loved it. Now that I’ve done it once though, I will definitely ask the fish monger to clean and filet it for me. Make sure you tell the fishmonger that you are making ceviche and want a fish that was brought in that morning. Call ahead. It is worth it!
8. Paella
This was also a family favorite. I made some spanish chorizo from scratch, brined the chicken using smoked paprika and cumin. Everything came out great, except the mussels. I didn’t time those right and some didn’t open enough. I will definitely make this again!
9. Octopus* – Did not do this the Octopus that were available were on the “Avoid” list of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Seafood Watch.
10. Jam
So I may have copped out a little on this one, but I never said I would do canning 🙂 I just simmered a bunch of berries over the summer that were on the verge of going bad. Strawberries, blueberries and raspberries cooked with a little bit of water, balsamic vinegar and sugar. It was delicious on ice cream and on toast for breakfast.
11. Yorkshire pudding
This was delicious! I will definitely be making this again. It is super easy. So much easier than I thought it would be. I looked at a couple of recipes and used this one from allrecipes.com. I didn’t make a roast that night, so I replaced the beef drippings with beef stock and served it with some leftover sausage and squash.
12. Cream puffs
I used one of my South African cookbooks for this and it was fairly successful. The best discovery was the “mock” pastry cream recipe from the de Villiers, Cook it and Enjoy It. You just whip together a little butter with sweetened condensed milk and lemon juice. Amazing!
For 2014 I have created a bucket list for the year and I’m starting on an ambitious project of cooking a recipe from one of my cookbooks each week, that I have not made before. I have 50 cookbooks, so that gives me 2 weeks off 🙂 Hopefully I will have time to blog about it. If not visit my Facebook page to get updates!
Cooking bucket list for 2014:
1. Rusks (think South African biscotti)
2. Macaroons
3. Scones
4. Brussel Sprouts (I’ve never cooked them. My husband loves them, so I’m taking one for the team so my kids won’t inherit my food prejudices 🙂 )
5. Pretzels
6. Poached Salmon
7. Beef Wellington
8. Coq au Vin
9. Khachapuri (a Georgian cheesy bread)
10. Duck (not necessarily a whole duck, we’ll see how adventurous I feel)
11. Tortillas
12. Chilaquiles (My favorite Mexican breakfast!!)
Happy New Year everyone!
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Try roasting brussel sprouts – that changes the flavour profile completely! I like to halve them, toss them in olive oil, salt & pepper, and also throw in some diced bacon. Bake on parchment paper – yum! I also highly recommend roasting cauliflower – its like vegetable candy and we can polish off 2 heads in one sitting!