Ham and Cheese Crepes and a hike to Babel Tower

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I can’t believe that Christmas has come and gone already.  I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!  Corby and I went up to the mountains in North Carolina since it is Walker’s year to spend Christmas with his dad 🙁  While we missed Walker tremendously, we had such a relaxing great time just the two of us.  For your sake, I am going to break this up into two posts because I would just ramble and ramble and the post would be too long for anyone to read, and of course you don’t want to miss anything.  So, the first night we got up to Linville, we made ham and cheese (yum) crepes.  A friend had made these for us when we were in NYC a few weeks ago, and they were amazing- we had to try them ourselves.  Our technique needs some working on, but they sure tasted good and were surprisingly easy.

Ham and Cheese Crepes

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup water

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons butter, melted

ham

grated mozzarella cheese

 

Directions:

In a large bowl, mix together the flour and the eggs. Gradually add in the milk and water, and then add the salt and butter and mix until smooth.

Heat a lightly oiled  frying pan over medium high heat. Ladel the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each crepe. Tilt the pan with a circular motion so that the batter coats the surface evenly.

Cook the crepe for about 2 minutes, until the bottom is light brown. Add in as much ham and grated cheese as you like. Loosen with a spatula and flip half of the crepe on top and then flip to cook the other side. Serve hot.  This is where our technique left something to be desired as it is a little tricky.  Make sure the frying pan is HOT.

These really were so easy and so good, and I think they come off as pretty impressive.

The next day, we went on a great hike down into the Linville Gorge to a swimming hole called Babel Tower- we didn’t swim.  But it was so beautiful, and in the summer, it is a great place to go.  There are several different places to jump off- very low places for me, and there is about a 20-foot jump which scares me to death, but is super fun for Walker.  Here are some pictures.    Tomorrow, I will post recipes about our Christmas day feast of Rommegrot and Canadian bacon strata and our hike up the profile of Grandfather Mountain- too fun!

You know what goes well with sailing (or anything)… tater tots

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Saturday was a pretty great day. It started off with pepper jack cheese scrambled eggs and maple bacon and ended with macaroni and cheese fritters with green tomato jam, and in the middle was a fantastic day sailing with great friends and snacking on tater tots.  I reconnected with a friend from college who is down in Charleston on his sailboat for a couple of weeks (not a bad life he leads), and he invited a group of us to go sailing with him on Saturday.  Now, to be honest, I hate sailing- well I should say, I hated sailing.  My dislike for the sport involves three very spread apart and very long stories that I won’t go into, but my last sailing venture ended up with us swimming to shore in a horrific storm and having the Coast Guard called to come save us- it really was not that much fun.  But, nevertheless, I went sailing with my old college friend and a group of my best friends from Charleston.  I think that it helped tremendously that the boat was significantly larger than the little sunfish I almost died in, and that there was very little wind to speak of.  It also helped that we stopped at the Marina Variety Store (www.varietystorerestaurant.com) to pick up some sandwiches and, the best, some tater tots.  Tater tots are so underrated and so under served.  They really should be a staple like French fries.  I think that tater tots go well with pretty much everything- sailing definitely included.  So, the sail was fantastic, and we got to see Santa who was also out in his boat with Mrs. Claus and a couple of elves, throwing candy and caroling to all the boats in the harbor- random but awesome.  Here are some pictures from the sail.

Charleston is so pretty! So of course, as soon as I got home, I googled tater tot recipes.  This one from www.food.com looked pretty good, and I will definitely try it, but Ore-Ida makes it so darn easy!  The last thing I will add is that we went to Big Gun Burger Shop (www.bigguncharleston.com) on Saturday night after a few Christmas parties that were heavy on the alcohol and light on the food.  This place is so great!!  Not only do they serve late, but they also have a Twinkie Milkshake which is really amazing.  I opted for the Mac and Cheese Fritters instead of a burger (which I have had and they are so good), and they were the perfect late-night snack (other than tater tots of course, but they didn’t have those on the menu which goes back to my whole thing of them being under-served!!)

Tater Tots

Ingredients:

8 medium potatoes, cooked, peeled, and hot
1 tablespoon flour
1 dash pepper
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons finely minced onions (optional)
canola oil or vegetable oil

Directions:

Finely shred or use a ricer while potatoes are still hot.

Stir in flour, salt, pepper and onion (if using).

Heat 1/4-in oil in heavy pan.

Form into small balls and drop in oil; fry until slightly golden.

 

 

A Blast 900 Class

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Since I get to write about food and baking all the time, here is a quick post on the opposite.  I took a Blast 900 (www.blast900.com) class this morning, and it was amazing!  I feel like I made up for all the candy I ate at the gingerbread house party.  It is an hour-long class that rotates between treadmill work and weights, and they say you can burn up to 900 calories in an hour.  Ok, so I ate way more than 900 calories of candy at the party, but this definitely helped!!  Here is a picture from their Facebook page to give you an idea of how badly my legs are going to hurt tomorrow.

Gingerbread House Party

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We went to my sister’s gingerbread house party in New York last weekend, and Walker was so disappointed that he couldn’t take his gingerbread house on the plane home, we decided to have a gingerbread house party as well.  Thanks to my mother’s genius when she was making houses for my sister’s party, she made five extra, because who doesn’t need extra gingerbread houses lying around?  There were so many great things about this party.  The first was that the only thing I had to do was buy the candy.  I can do that.  I can do that well.  The only problem there is making sure all of the candy actually gets home.  Here is the candy set up.

The second great thing about this party was the three families we had come over to help us decorate the houses.  Two of the families are very old friends of mine who I have know since I was born practically, and we all three went from 1st through 12th grade together, and that includes boarding school in Connecticut.  We had grown up decorating gingerbread houses together as children, and it was so much fun to watch our own children start this tradition for themselves.

The third thing I loved about this party was where my sweet old dog, Nemo, positioned himself.  Now, since I didn’t actually have to do anything for this party other than buy the candy, and since I am currently at my real job without my mother’s recipe book in front of me, I can’t post at this time the recipe for gingerbread houses, but I will do an update this afternoon when I get home.

I might be biased, but I think these four gingerbread houses are the best gingerbread houses ever to be built.  It is such a fun Christmas activity to do with children, and so much fun to eat after!

Update: Of course my wonderful mother sent me the recipe as soon as she read this!!

Gingerbread House/Men

 Cream:
¼ cup butter
½ cup sugar
½ cup dark molasses

 Sift:
3 ½ cups unbleached flour
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. cloves
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. ginger
2 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. baking soda

Add dry ingredients to the butter- sugar mixture alternately withabout ¼ – ½ cup water, or enough to be able to roll out the dough. Cut into shapes for a house or into Gingerbread men and bake on doubled, or even tripled layers of waxed paper. Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes.

Icing Cement

Mix 3 egg whites at room temperature until they are very peaked and dry. Slowly add one box of powdered sugar.

Elizabeth Taylor, Le Creuset and Toys for Tots

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I was asked last night if I went to the Elizabeth Taylor Jewelry Auction Preview while I was in New York last weekend.  I did not.  I heard the preview catalogue was $300 and since I  don’t like magazines and really don’t like catalogues, I think that is a little on the ridiculous side.  Despite all that, if I had won the lottery, a nice little Elizabeth Taylor bauble would probably be something I might enjoy.  Who doesn’t need a $12,000 hand mirror?? So, since the Elizabeth Taylor catalogue (http://www.christies.com/elizabethtaylor/the_sales.aspx) is not going to be part of my Santa list, the only thing to take its place is the Le Creuset gift guide (http://cookware.lecreuset.com/cookware/content_GiftGuide2_10151_-1_20002).  Yay!!  This is so much more up my alley- well at least for every day, reasonable, not ridiculous jewelry things.  There are some fantastic gifts on here in all price ranges.  In the $50 price range- the metal active-ball corkscrew is awesome.  My sweet friend who works at Le Creuset gave me one last Christmas, and I love it!

Another fantastic Christmas idea is one I got from The Bloggess (www.thebloggess.com)- if you don’t read her blog, you should.  I fall out of my chair laughing at her posts.  She is phenomenal, and I can’t wait until her book comes out this spring- you need to check her out!  Anyway- she said that for the past several years, she has gotten a whole bunch of toys and donated them to Toys for Tots in her parents’ name, which, I think, is pretty brilliant.  So, this year, she has four places you can donate to for the holidays.  Project Night Night (projectnightnight.org) is a great organization that provides a “Night Night” bag for homeless children that includes a book, blanket and stuffed animal.  The second is Toys for Tots (www.toysfortots.org).  The third is the The Heifer Project and I am going to re post what she put up about it because it so funny:

The Heifer Project (http://www.heifer.org/ourwork/our-work). Basically it’s about giving livestock and training to families around the world, because llamas are awesome.  Or something.  I don’t know.  I get confused after I see the llamas.  But I do know that they do amazing work and that you can buy a share of a goat for $10.  Which is great because you’re helping a family in need and you also get to tell your horrible aunt Frieda (who made you feel fat when you were 12 and won’t stop asking why you aren’t married yet) that for Christmas you bought a share of a goat in her honor.  The ass end.  Merry Christmas to everyone concerned.

The fourth is Wish Upon a Hero (www.wishuponahero.com)- people can post what they need, and you can look up by all sorts of criteria including zip code and grant a wish to someone in need.

Well, just a couple of thoughts in this holiday season-  I need to start shopping!!

 

Grilled Pumpkin Soup, Oyster Sliders and a Black and White Eclair

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I love New York.  I am so glad I do not live there anymore, but I really do love it.  We had such a fun weekend, and the weather, although not cold and Christmas spirit-inspiring, was fantastic.  The food was even better.  We went to a lot of places, and I don’t think all of the walking we did was even close enough to cover the intake.  First stop was Mas (La Grillade)  http://www.maslagrillade.com, which is a new restaurant down in the Greenwich Village that opened in September as a sister restaurant to Mas Farmhouse (www.masfarmhouse.com) , which is just around the corner.   Here, the chef, James Beard Winner Galen Zamarra, “feels that the basic technique of cooking over an open fire is the best way to honor the inherent natural properties of food”. While I don’t really understand all that, the food was amazing!  I had a grilled romaine salad as a starter and then the grilled pumpkin soup with broiled goat cheese croutons, bluefoot mushrooms and chives and rosemary oil.  It was amazingly delicious and a wonderful evening with great friends.

Even though we live in Charleston and have fresh oysters practically in our backyard, Corby heard about the oyster sliders at The Dutch (http://thedutchnyc.com), so of course, we went to try them.  While I did not partake in the consuming of the oyster sliders, the restaurant had a great atmosphere and wonderful feel, and the look on Corby’s face while eating said slider- I am assuming they were pretty marvelous.

And last, but certainly not least, and probably my favorite of all was the Dominique Ansel Bakery (http://dominiqueansel.com) down in Soho, we went to check out on Sunday morning.  We unfortunately shared a black and white eclair- I say unfortunately because I wanted it all for myself and then maybe three others to go with it.  It was the best eclair I have had in a very long time, and I feel like I am well-versed in all things eclair, as they are my favorite.

All in all, I feel like I got the best NYC experience.  We walked everywhere, tried several new restaurants, had amazing dinners and wine and saw lots of old friends, got delayed for almost two hours at Laguardia for no apparent reason, and got in late last night exhausted and happy to be home.  It was perfect.