Hey everyone! Jeff and I are heading up to the Chattanooga area for round one of our Christmas festivities. I’m leaving you guys with this cute Christmas quiz I’ve seen around the blog world…

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Well, I hate egg nog, but your standard hot chocolate from a powder doesn’t cut it either. It’s gotta be real hot chocolate from melted shards of good quality chocolate shaved right off the bar. Nutella helps too.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? We always had the presents from Santa sitting out where we could see them as soon as we ran into the living room. Santa and his team are way too busy to wrap presents.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? When I was young we used the colored lights and covered every inch of the house with them. That was magical to me and definitely my preference. We did the white lights when I was older and it just didn’t feel Christmas-y.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? Nah, I can find plenty of good reasons to kiss my husband without it. 😉

5. When do you hang your decorations up? I’m all for leaving the month of November for Thanksgiving, so when we decorate next year I’ll probably wait until the first week of December.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? I live for the stuffing! And a good sweet potato souffle with the brown sugar and pecan crumble topping.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? I remember one year my sister and I got bean bag chairs for Christmas. They were both wrapped in boxes bigger than we were and we spent the whole month of December trying to guess what was in them. The chairs were fun, but I think we had more fun playing in the empty boxes!

8. What is on your Christmas Wish list? Many things. You can always appease me with photography books and asian dishware.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? We always got to open one gift each on Christmas Eve and it was usually pajamas. Anti-climactic.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? We’ll be decorating for the first time next year and I know for sure that I want all of our ornaments to be either handmade or deeply personal, so I’ll make enough to get it going and we’ll add to it every year when we have kids.

11. Snow? Love it or dread it? I love the stuff. Something happens to the air after a snowfall, it’s still and quiet and empty-feeling. I really like that. However, the sound of snow compacting under your winter boots is like nails on a chalkboard to me.

12. Real tree or fake tree? We always had real growing up and I do love the smell, but I think we’ll be going with a fake one to be more environmentally friendly and so that we don’t have to spend money on a new one every year. We might get a real tree once or twice just for fun.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? The first thing that popped into my head when I started thinking was a Caboodle makeup box that my aunt gave me as a young teen. Girls love boxes with lots of compartments.

14. What’s the most important thing about Christmas for you? Getting to see all of our family. Jeff and I are the only members of our families that live in Atlanta. His family is 2 hours north and mine is an hour+ south, so we can’t just pop over for tea whenever.

15. What is your favorite Holiday dessert? While I like all of the typical holiday desserts like pumpkin pie and pecan pie, none of them are really my favorites. I always want cake and there’s rarely cake.

16. What is your favorite tradition? We didn’t really have any traditions that I can think of. I would like to make handmade Christmas ornaments with our children every year when we’re parents though.

17. What tops your tree? I’ll probably make a fancy origami star.

18. Which do you prefer: giving or receiving? I am not afraid to say that I really enjoy receiving! Who doesn’t like getting stuff? I do get a thrill though when I pick out a gift for someone that perfectly suits them and they’re really excited about.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song?  I like the more solemn songs sung by a full choir, can’t think of the names though.

20. Candy canes, yuck or yum? I’m not really a huge peppermint fan but I don’t think they’re gross.

21. Favorite Christmas Movie? I have probably seen The Santa Clause 50 times. Tim Allen is my Santa.

22. What do you leave for Santa? I always left chocolate chip cookies. I think our future kids should leave a wedge of cake though. 😉

23. Do you have a Christmas morning tradition? Not really. We always opened presents and ate sausage balls for breakfast and then hurried over to Granny’s to do it all over again.

24. Do you prefer to shop on-line or at the mall? I hate malls. Hate em’. We did about 80% of our shopping online this year and it was wonderful. I only had to step foot in a mall once.

25. Christmas letter or Christmas card?  I don’t think we’ll do either, I’ve never been a card person.

That was fun. Hope you all enjoy your holidays, talk to you afterwards!

December 24, 2011 Alayna Discussion 3 comments

All that’s left to share from last weekend is this incredible apple butter cake!

I love to bake, but ever since I started paying attention to eating mostly healthy foods I’ve tried to put aside that urge to make a batch of cookies every week. I have a huge folder full of bookmarked recipes for when I need a “fancy” dessert, if only I had enough occasions to make them all!

This is a cake that I heavily modified from another recipe. It’s so far changed from that “inspiration cake” though that I feel totally cool with posting it as my own recipe.

Apple butter cake

A damp and delicious cake with the warm winter flavors of cinnamon and rich apple butter.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 40 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Yield: 1 9-inch cake layer

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 and 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 3/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup apple butter
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 small eggs
• 3/4 cup unsweetened almond milk
• 1/4 tsp. ground clove
• 1/4 tsp. ground ginger

Cooking Directions

1. In a stand mixer, mix together oil and brown sugar followed by the vanilla, apple butter, and eggs one at a time.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together dry ingredients and spices and slowly add to the wet mixture in three installments, allowing the dry to fully incorporate with the wet each time.
3. Slowly drizzle in almond milk while the mixer is at it's lowest speed until it is fully combined.
4. Pour batter into a non-stick tart pan or regular 9-inch cake pan sprayed with a non-stick spray.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
6. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

I love how damp the texture of this cake is. It reminds me of a really good banana bread. The frosting is a sweet contrast to the subtle cake flavor but it isn’t too crazy sweet either. The flavor of the cider is barely noticeable in it, it just adds a kind of fresh fruity crispness.

Cinnamon cider buttercream

Sweet buttercream with a hint of fresh fall apple and warming cinnamon.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 3/4 stick unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup apple cider
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• pinch of salt
• up to 4 cups powdered sugar

Cooking Directions

1. Beat room-temperature butter in a stand mixer until light and fluffy.
2. Add in a cup of the sugar and all the other ingredients and beat until combined.
3. Keep adding sugar a bit at a time and mixing until the desired thickness is achieved.
4. Spread over a completely cooled cake.

I ended up pawning the rest of the cake off on my mom and brother-in-law. If it had sat in my house any longer I would have undoubtedly eaten it all myself. I love sweets.

Speaking of sweets, today I’m baking up a carrot cake to take to Christmas Eve dinner with Jeff’s family. I’m adding some special signature touches to it, so I’ll be sure to share the recipe with you after the holidays. Hope yours are wonderful!

December 23, 2011 Alayna Discussion, Recipes 9 comments

Earlier this year when Jeff and I were taking a vacation in Seattle, we visited a vegetarian restaurant for lunch called Cafe Flora. There, we had an appetizer of rosemary biscuits topped with the most amazing mushroom miso gravy ever.

Ever since then, I’ve been meaning to recreate the recipe at home but never really got around to it. So when I mentioned that I might want to make a miso shiitake gravy for the dinner party this past weekend, Jeff immediately asked, “Like the one we had in Seattle?!?!” Yes, my love, like the one we had in Seattle….but better!

I started by chopping up a bunch of shiitake mushroom caps. I’m not really sure how many, and they were all different sizes, but I’d say it was around 2 cups or so.

I even found this really cool “mutant” mushroom in the bunch…

I discarded the stems because while shiitake stems are edible, they’re very woody and unpleasant to eat. I sauteed them in a few spoonfuls of lamb drippings but really you can use any fat, butter would work very well. I also threw in a few of the roasted garlic cloves from the lamb which dissolved nearly immediately, but chopped garlic would be just fine. Also, I didn’t add any extra herbs because the lamb drippings were already so heavily scented with rosemary, but if I didn’t use the drippings I would have added a bit of chopped rosemary instead.

Once they were very soft I sprinkled in a little flour to make a mushroom roux. It should come together like a thick paste with the texture of wet sand.

Then I added in the liquids; vegetable stock, soy sauce, and a bit of apple cider vinegar. I put a big dollop of red miso in and used a small whisk to incorporate it slowly and completely.

Then it just needs to reduce a bit to the desired consistency.

It is absolutely killer at this stage with all of the chunky mushroom bits swimming in the richly flavorful sauce, but I decided to pulse it a few times in a food processor because I wanted a more homogenous texture, as you can see on my plate below. I think next time I would leave it as is though.

Miso shiitake gravy

A rich vegetarian gravy made with earthy mushrooms and salty red miso.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 cups chopped shiitake mushroom caps
• half a quart vegetable stock
• 1/3 cup red miso
• 1 tbsp. soy sauce
• 1 tsp. apple cider vinegar
• 4 tbsp. butter
• up to 4 tbsp. flour
• 1 tbsp. chopped fresh rosemary

Cooking Directions

1. Sautee mushrooms and rosemary in butter over medium heat until soft.
2. Sprinkle over flour while stirring and keep adding until you have the texture of wet sand.
3. Add in liquids and lightly whisk in miso to incorporate.
4. Allow to reduce for 5 minutes or until desired thickness is achieved.

If you can’t find shiitakes that’s ok, but I’d make sure to use another flavorful mushroom such as portabellas. Button mushrooms should really be reserved for topping salads and pizzas. And while I truly prefer red miso in this recipe for the way it pairs better with red meats, white will be just fine but can sometimes be a little too salty, so you might even want to omit the soy sauce if you’re using it to cut the extra saltiness.

This miso gravy is a recipe I fully intend to pull out again to impress a guest. Also, every time I make a roux I feel like a real chef. It’s so easy but it just feels so fancy!

Do you roux?

December 22, 2011 Alayna Discussion, Recipes 5 comments