My best ever scalopped potatoes

This was one of those inspired moments when you add a bit of this, a bit of that, and you end up with a dish that turns out better than any other version you ever prepared before. I must put it up here to make sure I will be able to repeat it again, to make sure I will not upset my family with lesser casserole. This is what I did:

cca 9 lbs potatoes
½ to 1 lb dry sausages, preferably smoked, like a Chabai
½ cup oil
¼ cup bacon bits
5-6 eggs
1 pint (500 gr) sour cream
2 cups milk
1 Tbs chicken soup powder, or Mr Dash, or any other flavour enhancer
salt, pepper

Cook the potatoes, let them cool, then peel and slice them. While the potatoes cool, slice up the sausages and fry them slightly in the oil. This will make the sausages tastier and the oil will be infused with the sausage flavour. When you take it off the heat, stir in the bacon bits, also. Scoop the coins out with a slotted spoon, the bacon bits can stay.

Oil a large casserole dish. I prefer the wider, flatter variety, as that produces a casserole with lots of crunchy corners and surfaces. As you peel and slice the potatoes, they can go directly in the pan. Layer them down alternately with the sausages so that the top layer will be potatoes.

Now take a bowl and whip the sour cream in it until smooth. Add the eggs one by one, then the oil with all the bacon bits. Stir in the milk, eyeballing it to have approximately enough liquid to cover the top layer of potatoes also, then flavour this sauce, making sure that the flavours are quite stronger than normal, because the potatoes will absorb and mellow them.

Pour a spoonful or two of extra oil on the top, and bake it (350F-) until the edges are golden and the top is crunchy. In our family this constitutes a hearty meal, served with pickles, beet relish, or tomato salad.

Pesto crescents

This recipe will yield a relatively large amount of crescents. If you want, you can fill half of the dough with jam, a nut or chocolate filling.

2 lbs flour
2 Tbs fry active yeast
2 c milk
1/2 c white wine (or soda water)
1/2 c butter (margarine)
2 Tbs sugar
2 tsp salt
2 or 3 egg yolks
a jar of pesto (basil, olive, or sun dried tomato)

Knead all these together to get a nice, smoothly elastic dough. If too stiff, you can add a few spoonfuls of sour cream. If sticky, add a little extra flour. Let it rise till double.

Separate into balls and roll each ball into a circle. Cut the circle into wedges, smear a little pesto on each and roll them up. Arrange them on parchment lines cookie sheet and let them rise a little. You may brush the tops with egg wash and sprinkle some Parmesan or sesame seeds over them.

Cardamom coffee cake with almond filling

(Picture) – to follow

flour, altogether 3 ¼ - 3 ½ cups
1 package active dry yeast
2/3 cup milk
6 Tbs butter or margarine
1/3 cup sugar
1 ts salt
1 egg + 1 yolk
½ to 1 ts ground cardamom


Heat the milk, butter, sugar and salt together in a cup. It should be still comfortably warm to your hand. Take a large bowl, put in it 1 ½ cup flour, cardamom, egg and yolk, and beat it with an electric mixer for about 3 minutes. Then add enough of the remaining flour to have a moderately stiff dough. Turn this out onto a floured surface and knead it for another 3-4 minutes. Now put it in a greased bowl and let it rise to double it original amount.

In the meantime prepare the filling:
½ cup almonds
½ cup sugar
1 ts cinnamon
1 egg white

Toast the almonds spread on a sheet of aluminum foil in a toaster oven. When cool enough to handle, grind it in a grinder or blender. Beat the whites to stiff, gradually adding the sugar. Then gently fold in the almonds and the cinnamon.

Now take off 1/3 to ½ of the dough. Roll out the rest into a 10x10 inches rectangle. Spread the filling over it, then roll it up jelly roll fashion. Make a ring and place it on a parchment lined sheet. Now make a rope out of the smaller ball of dough, wet the top of the large ring and form a ring on top of it with the rope. With a pair of scissors snip diagonally into the rope at regular (cca 2 inches) intervals, then twist these leaf shaped sections one outward, one inward, all around.

Let it rise again a little, then bake the cake at 375F for about 25 minutes. You can put some aluminum foil over it if the top seems to brown too quickly. When done, let it cool, then drizzle the icing over it.

Brown butter icing

Heat 2 Tbs unsweetened butter, stirring constantly, until it turns brown. When cool, gradually add 1 cup powder sugar, adding ½ ts vanilla and further easing it with drops of milk to get it to drizzling consistency. Now pour this by tablespoons over the top of the cake and let it dry.

New Year's Day open house

We had a great New Year's Day open house. It is a recent "tradition" that our family started a few years ago. Our doors open at around lunch time (12:30 this year), and goes on for whenever the last guests leave. There is a little detail about this year that I did not appreciate: the first guest arrived at 12:20, ten minutes before the official opening... Please, people, don't do that! (...they are my relatives and I know they won't mind my public disclosure here :) Give a little extra time to the hosts, they are NEVER ready right on time, there is always something forgotten that they remember in the last minute.

Anyway, aside from me still being in the shower when guests started to arrive, we had a successful open house this year. The fireplace was crackling invitingly, the buffet table was laden, the coffee machine was exuding its heady aroma, and the mulled wine was gently warming on the stove. For the earlier guests we had finger food, both savoury and sweet, then around dinner time we had a few warm, more substantial dishes added to the menu.

This is the list of this year's offerings: cold turkey breast stuffed with chicken liver pate, olive pesto rolls, almond rice, cabbage salad. On the sweet side: cardamom coffee cake with toasted almond filling, the all-time favourite Bacardi rum cake, brownie-cheesecake slices, walnut slices, and peanut brittle. For the later warm fare I always make a big pot of chili, because that always tastes even better when prepared ahead and reheated. We also had an artichoke cheese cake that was reheated in the toaster oven, and I had some puff pastry cups that I filled with a salmon-scrambled eggs filling, both prepared ahead of the time, just assembled and heated before serving.

I managed to take only a few photos, I will post those recipes in the coming days.

Happy New Year!