Thanksgiving

I'm working on three posts from Thanksgiving, one for each dish that I made. I may add another post with pics from the whole dinner, as well, time permitting. I'm giving a heads up so you don't miss them, as they'll all likely be posted around the same time, and I'll update the list below to link to the posts once they're up. They will be:

• Stuffed Artichokes
• Bacon Cheddar Chive Biscuits
• Green Bean Casserole
• Thanksgiving Dinner (maybe)

Yum! Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving :)

Beef and Lentil Soup

Winter is here. It may be barely halfway through November, but already the mall is playing Christmas music, we've had our first snowflake, and the scarves have been broken out.

Aww, who am I kidding, I love it! Well, at least until January 2nd, and then I just want to get all the coldness over with. But until then, I'm a giant Christmas nerd (you don't want to be around me between Thanksgiving and New Year's, as there is always some device playing constant holiday music, on top of a TV playing "Elf" or "Love Actually"), and scarves are totally in right now.

Another one of my favorite things about winter is Giada De Laurentiis's Lentil Soup with Beef. Nothing warms me up like a big bowl of this hearty soup, nothing short of a glass of Jameson, anyway. At least twice a winter I make a huge batch of this, freeze it, and bring it to work for lunch (and usually dinner, too... my job sucks). I've held off as long as I could, and now it's finally winter enough to break out this old favorite!

Crab and Artichoke Soufflé

Now we're cooking! This is what I signed up for the Daring Kitchen for. Technically challenging, classic dishes that everyone used to know how to do, but are rarely seen outside of stuffy French restaurants anymore. Of all the dishes I've been wanting to make, soufflés have always loomed as the most challenging. Let's see if they've earned their lofty reputation.

Dave and Linda from Monkeyshines in the Kitchen chose Soufflés as our November 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge! Dave and Linda provided two of their own delicious recipes plus a sinfully decadent chocolate soufflé recipe adapted from Gordon Ramsay’s recipe found at the BBC Good Food website.

Chicken Riggies

Must be something in the water over there in Utica. Although it's a small city of only 60,000, I have discovered three amazing dishes that were invented there and are quickly earning a name for themselves outside of Central New York. The first I encountered was Utica Greens - escarole baked with three types of julienned hot peppers, prosciutto, bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese. Perfect side dish to a tender veal roast. Another Utica-born favorite is Tomato Pie. Picture a thick crust square pizza, very thick and chunky tomato sauce, and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese (no mozzarella), served room temperature. You can't possibly imagine why it's so good until you try it.

Better than both of these, however, is the lovely Chicken Riggies. Any self-respecting Central NY restaurant has it on their menu, and everyone from the region has their own version. Essentially, it's chicken in a hot pepper tomato cream sauce over rigatoni (hence, the "riggies"). Being someone that LOVES tomato cream sauces, it's no wonder I quickly fell in love. I don't normally like food that's too spicy, but the cream tames it a bit, and it's very easy to alter to your level of heat tolerance by how many and which type of peppers you use.