Thanksgiving Surprise

Happy Thanksgiving Week!  The holiday season is here and we have a little extra thankfulness at our home.  Chef E will not be with us on Thanksgiving Day this year and recently proposed a clever idea:  A surprise Thanksgiving!  We summoned a little help from a favorite local restaurant for the main course, but Chef E had a list of recommendations for our cooking project.

Pumpkin Pie Rice Krispie Treats

These beauties were pulled from a new favorite website in the household:  Sally's Baking Addiction.  The recipe can be located via this link:  Pumpkin Pie Rice Krispie Treats.  In our execution of this recipe, we had difficulty making the white chocolate actually drizzle.  Thankfully, our kitchen was stocked with an emergency supply of white chocolate (what proper kitchen isn't?) and we melted our extra ingredient over a double boiler prior to spreading on top.  We sprinkled with an extra dash of cinnamon.

Grandma's Green Bean Casserole

The best food is often messy food and this recipe is no exception.  It is full of cheesy, oozy, crunchy goodness and we followed the recipe's presentation by baking in our own individual ramekins.  This recipe is courtesy of The Complete Savorist and can be located via this link:  Grandma's Green Bean Casserole.  This dish is actually my favorite guilty pleasure of the holiday season and I was extra thankful for Chef E's suggestion!

Lollipop Cheese Balls

Sometimes a recipe results from an accident and that is the case for this dish.  I cannot recant exactly how we made this... but it had something to do with cream cheese, cheddar cheese, Worchestershire sauce, spices, and dried, chopped cranberries.  The presentation was great fun! 

Dessert Nachos

Today sisters Chef E and Chef S made a new treat... dessert nachos!  The inspiration originated from Chef S' s recent cooking class.  Chef E and I looked on as her class made tortillas from scratch and then turned them into cinnamon-sugar "nachos."  But- wait!  There were no toppings!  

Chef E turned to me and said, "We can do better at home."

And so today we accepted the challenge!

Step One:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Lay three tortillas onto baking sheets (we lined ours with nonstick foil) and spray with cooking spray.

Step Two:

Measure one tablespoon of sugar and sprinkle it over the three tortillas.   Then sprinkle with cinnamon to taste.

Step Three:

Bake tortillas until crisp, about 10 to 12 minutes.

Step Four:

Slice your fruit of choice, for toppings.  We selected bananas, but strawberries would also be nice.  Chef S' s cooking school teaches young children to cut with the pizza cutters above.  I thought this to be a brilliant solution and snagged two for the girls.

Behold, our mound of massacred bananas!

Step Five:

When the tortillas are ready, pull them out of the oven.  I cut the tortillas myself, so the girls would not handle a hot pan.

Step Six:

Sprinkle with your toppings of choice.  My girls selected chocolate chips, marshmallows, and bananas, but the options are endless.  Let your imagination go wild!  Strawberries... caramel sauce... toasted almonds... even yogurt to "dip" them in (like sour cream for regular nachos).

Step Seven:

We found that the toppings needed extra "goo" factor, so we places our nachos back into the oven for a few minutes.  Chef E has questioned whether we should top the tortillas during Step Two.  Next time, we may give it a try!

Finished product!  The bananas help give the marshmallows and chocolate satisfying "ooze."  Chef E and Chef S found them to be so tasty that we had to wipe huge chocolate smudges from their faces.  Success!

Cheese Tasting

Welcome to our cheese tasting!  The lesson today is:  Cheese is not just "cheese."  Cheese has a rather wide scope of textures and flavors and a grand range of uses.  

Some of the cheeses featured today were previously tasted by our crew... but it's easier to sneak in a couple of surprises that way!  Every family member had the opportunity to contribute a reaction to each cheese.  What would yours be?

The first cheese we tried was marscapone cheese.  We used this cheese to make some of our sweet and savory fig jam crackers from a prior blog, so this was not too unfamiliar.  Tasted alone, however, we had quite a different reaction!

Chef Daddy:  "Bland, creamy, and buttery.  Liked it."

Chef Mimi:  "Smooth, neutral, and buttery.  Liked it."

Chef E:  "Dry, needs jelly.  Like it with something, but not alone."

Chef S:  "Ewww!  This is NOT brie!" 

Our next trial was a favorite and easy to convince all parties to try.

Chef Daddy:  "Nutty, smooth, and earthy.  Liked it."

Chef Mimi:  "Oozy, gooey.  Liked it."

Chef E:  "Smooth, earthy.  Liked it."

Chef S:  "It's my FAVORITE!"

This English cheddar was surprising for Chef E, as she did not know that there are different types of cheddar cheeses.  American (yellow) cheddar is much different!

Chef Daddy:  "Sharp, crumbly, and nutty.  Like it."

Chef Mimi:  "Punchy, crumbly, and uncommon.  Liked it."

Chef E:  "Dry and tastes different.  Liked it."

Chef S:  "Bleh."

This was one of my two big surprises for the day.  I have previously made paninis for Chef Daddy with this cheese, but have not previously introduced it to the girls.  In my opinion, it is best paired with a strong, sweet jam and a crisp, porky product.

Chef Daddy:  "Pungent and needs to paired with something.  It's just OK."

Chef Mimi:  "Sour, dry, and needs to paired with something.  It's just OK."

Chef E:  "Not my thing.  Did not like it."

Chef S:  Refused to try it.

This cheese was my trick of the tasting.  It looks inviting and sweet... but it packs quite the sour punch.  Stilton cheese is traditionaly injected with a blue penicillin mold product to make blue cheese.  White stilton does not have the mold injected, but is still a stinky British cheese.

Chef Daddy:  "Sour and grainy.  Did not like it."

Chef Mimi:  "Surprising, sour, and its appearance is deceiving.  It's just OK.:

Chef E:  "Sour and dry.  Did not like it."

Chef S:  "BLEHHHHHHH"  (She choked, gagged, and spat her bite out.)

What did we learn today?  We learned that cheeses taste very different and we each have our own personal preferences. 

Do What You Love...

It is complete!  We repurposed our kitchen wall as discussed with Chef E to support our family blog project.  Any Big Bang Theory fans may chuckle to learn that Chef Daddy questions whether this is the culinary equivalent of a Fun With Flags backdrop.  We can hardly wait to break in the menu board when Chef E returns this weekend!

Fancy-Funny Finger Food Night

August has arrived, and so we Texans are in the proverbial "dog days of summer."  I wanted sisters Chef E and Chef S to kick off their weekend with a cooking project... but what to do when the weather inspires anything but a hot kitchen?  The solution:  Finger foods!

I devised a plan.  While Chef E is growing more adventurous in her tastes, Chef S remains a challenge.  But what if we took some familiar foods and used them just a little differently?

Banana Bites

These banana bites were an easy sell.  The sisters love bananas and peanut butter separately- and currants are a "little sister" to raisins.  Perhaps that explains why Chef S couldn't stop herself from munching straight from the box... and ran off with it.  She earned the nickname "currant bandit" for the night.

Ingredients
-Your favorite peanut butter
-Bananas
-Currants

Method
 1.  Peel your banana(s).  Lay each banana on its side, on a cutting board.  Cut the banana into coins, 1/2 inch in size, and into as many coins as you want for servings.  Lay each coin onto one of its flat sides.
2. Use a butter knife to spread thick dollops of peanut butter on the top side of each banana coin.
3.  Sprinkle currants on top of each peanut butter dollop.
4. Transfer the banana bites onto a serving plate and enjoy.


Sweet and Savory Fig Jam Crackers

These ingredients were a little more exotic to Chef E and Chef S, but still didn't require too much "sell" from Chef Daddy or Mimi.  We took turns exclaiming "Canape!" as we assembled our tasty treats.

Chef E was curious about this fancy sounding Italian cheese and snuck a little sample during assembly.  She may have sniffed it suspiciously before braving a lick.  The cheese's flavor did not impress her on it's own, but she was surprised at its transformation when combined with other flavors.

Chef S was just as taken with the fig jam as the currants.  It took all our attention to stop her from digging fingers into the jar for a extra samples.

The last ingredient was bacon.  Yes... bacon.  Glorious, salty, smoky, crispy, porky, bacon-y BACON! Chef E was very skeptical.  Her nose crinkled a bit as I explained to her that we would sprinkle it over the buttery marscapone and sweet fig jam.  One bite, however, and she was a believer!

Ingredients
-Your favorite crackers (we used a multigrain cracker)
-Marscapone cheese
-Fig jam
-Your favorite bacon slices, cooked to a crispy texture and crumbled

Method
1. Lay as many crackers as you need for servings onto a cutting board.
2. Use a butter knife to spread a layer of marscapone cheese onto each cracker.
3. Use another, clean butter knife to spread a layer of fig jam onto each cracker, on top of the marscapone cheese.
4. Sprinkle bacon crumbles on top of fig jam.  (One bacon slice lasted us eight crackers.)
5. Transfer crackers to a serving dish and enjoy.


Both recipes were a hit for our fancy-funny finger food night.  Even Daddy couldn't deny their appeal.  We enjoyed other additions to our spread, but these were the standouts of our weekend.  I loved that these were simple enough for each sister to be very involved in their assembly and also kept a cool kitchen. 

One last lesson from our finger food extravaganza:  Using popcorn like this sure is funny, but a big flop in taste.  (I forgot the bell pepper I planned to "dot" the hummus with... and what was I thinking?)

Chef E gains big points for trying this bite.

What fancy and funny finger foods will your family create?

Welcome

Welcome to Mimi's Eats!  I am Mimi: a wife, "bonus" mom, and "bio" mom, with a passion for cooking and a full-time job on the side.  My family is comprised of my husband (Chef Daddy), my bonus daughter (Chef E, in second grade), our youngest daughter (Chef S, in preschool), and a very hungry rescue mutt named Lilly.  This site is dedicated to Chef E's request to begin documenting our family's culinary adventures.

Why use the name Mimi and what's with the slogan?

When I first entered Chef E and Chef Daddy's life, Chef E didn't know what to call me.  Eventually, she pulled together the name Mimi... and it stuck!  As for the waffles?  Just before Chef Daddy and I married, Chef E was watching Snow White on a lazy Saturday.  She informed me that the bad queen in the movie was Snow White's stepmother.  She raised her angelic eyes to mine and asked quite pointedly:  "Are you a good queen, or a bad queen?"

I was stunned... and before I could stop myself, the first words that flew out of my mouth were:  "That queen has red apples.  I am a good queen because I don't have red apples... I make waffles!"

And so it began.  A kitchen which has never housed a red apple and a family with a passion for cooking.  Thank you for following our journey and please return soon!

-Mimi