Good Things - Holidays 2012

Random good things from the past few weeks...

By happy chance, I discovered a fantastic spice store in a nearby market -- Colonel De.  Jars line shelves above and below the counter, filled with every imaginable spice, dried herb, flavored sugar, flavored salt, pepper, and spice blend.  I was, quite literally, a kid in a candy store.  Their most adorable offerings were samplers packaged in miniature tins, like this flavored sugar kit.  I can't wait to go back for their Some Like It Hot kit to taste different dried peppers and spicy blends!

Trader Joe's continues to rock my socks off.  Pomegranate arils already removed from the pomegranate?  Yes, please!  I've been adding the juicy seeds to everything, but my favorite dishes so far are an improvised pumpkin parfait (pumpkin puree, Greek yogurt, maple syrup, spices, chocolate granola, and pomegranate arils) or atop baked pumpkin oatmeal with maple syrup.

This salad has also been knocking my socks off recently - lacinato kale, granny smith apple, feta or goat cheese crumbles, pomegranate arils, and a mustardy, vinagery vinaigrette.  Since I'm still coming to terms with salads, the fact that I've enjoyed this salad 3 times last week is saying something.

I'd read about a set of four mini bottles of bitters in Bon Appetite and kept my acquisitive eye out for them.  I actually found these two quality kits at Anthropologie, of all places.  In the two sets from Scrappy's Bitters, there are both traditional flavors for bitters (orange, aromatics, celery) and some more unusual ones (lavender, caradamom).  No cocktails with them yet, though I couldn't resist sampling a few flavors with seltzer water.  The lavender is going to make for a killer lavender daquiri, inspired by one I enjoyed at The Winds restaurant in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

Granola.  It's almost a niche market anymore, one that I'd avoided for a few years in search of balance.  See, I went to a rather liberal school...where some people might be labeled with the term granola.  So it just felt over the top to actually eat granola.  Then I rediscovered how dang tasty granola + yogurt is.  Follow that with Sprouted Kitchen's recipe for lemon cremes with thyme-oat crumble (it's granola in disguise, people!), and I was hooked again.

Best of all?  I can make my own granola.  For a lot less money, using only the ingredients I want to eat.  This is the second batch I've made in the last few months.  It's pumpkin pecan granola from The Sprouted Kitchen Cookbook, which is filled with so many tasty AND healthy recipes I actually want to eat.  

Coming sometime in the near future....David Leibovitz's persimmon cake!

Since I didn't have time to make it before Christmas, I frugally peeled and pureed my uber-ripe persimmons and stored them in the freezer.  I love the vibrant orange of persimmon!

Our New Year's Eve spread included the standard snacks (pretzels, salt and pepper chips), leftover tapas from a family shindig (piquillo peppers stuffed with manchego, herb and olive oil marinated feta, crudites), a full plate of Christmas cookies and candies (see the full list!), and a roasted pork tenderloin seasoned with smoked paprkia.  I roasted my first full tenderloin, people!  I even brined it for a few hours beforehand, another first for me!  It turned out moist and tender, perfectly cooked through because - get this - I used a meat thermometer! Bam, bam, bam, I started off 2013 kicking ass in the kitchen, if I do say so myself.

To go with the pork, I made one of Eric's favorites - oven roasted potatoes seasoned with salt, cumin, and chile pepper.  And sitting next to that, looking somewhat questionable, is one of the most delicious regional dishes ever to come from Cincinnati.  Skyline Chili Dip.  It's a layer of cream cheese on the bottom, topped with Skyline's famous Cincinnati-style chili from a can (it's a rather liquid chili, with miniscule pieces of meat and no bean, characterized by its use of chocolate) and lots of cheese.  Add chopped onion and Skyline's hot sauce after warming in the oven and you have some serious crack dip.  Well, I do mean crack.  Even after I ate dinner, I was still shoveling tortilla chip after tortilla chip of Skyline dip into my greedy little mouth. Mmmmmm...

(disclaimer: Eric refuses to acknowledge the glory that is Skyline Chili, claiming the actual chili is awful.  I have to agree, if you're eating it as a bowl of chili.  But on top of spaghetti (Cincy's three way, four way, or five way meals) or on top of a hot dog (coney style), it's amazing.)

(I also admit to eating Skyline's hot sauce on nearly everything.  Seriously.)