Erin's Top Ten Cooking Countdown of 2006 (2/2)

So it's New Years Day, and I'm sitting in my cozy little Mississippi apartment thinking of resolutions for the new year. More complicated baking? Check. Even fewer animal products from the year before? Check. Learn to make pear butter? Check. But in 2006, I got a few things right as well. So let the final half (and I know you've been aching to know!) of my 2006 Best Of list commence!

5.) Pumpkin Ginger Bread

Thanks to Meagan and Martha Stewart for this one. It's easy, portable, and enjoyed by all who have good taste. If you have fresh pumpkin, all the better!

Ingredients:

12 tbsp (1.5 sticks butter), unsalted, melted, plus room-temperature butter for pan.
2.5 cups all purpose flour (spooned and leveled) plus more for pan
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin puree (1 and 3/4 cups)
3 large eggs
sugar glaze (see below)


Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Butter and flour two 8.5 by 4.5 inch loaf pans. Set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, ginger, and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk together sugars, pumpkin, melted butter, and eggs; add flour mixture and stir until just combined.

Divide batter between prepared pans. Bake until a toothpick inserted into center of loaves comes out clean, about 50 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes. Invert pans and transfer loaves to a wire rack to cool completely. Glaze if desired.

For the sugar glaze, in a small bowl, mix 1.5 cups confectioners'' sugar with 2 to 3 tablespoons water until mixture is smooth but thick. Place waxed paper under rack for a quick cleanup. For easy pouring, transfer glaze to a liquid-measuring cup and drizzle over loaves. Let dry 15 minutes before serving. Makes enough for two loaves.



4.) Butternut Squash Soup

This is a simple, elegant, and surprisingly heavy soup. I like to garnish it to make it look pretty (cilantro and pumpkin seeds work better than cheese) and serve it with a light salad. (Christy salad perhaps?) Maybe some bread? And half & half works just as well as cream, in fact, perhaps better simply because the soup is so heavy to begin with.

3.) Hungarian Lentil Stoup

Technically I first made this dish last year and while I have pleasant memories of an unhappy time that are directly attached to the ingredient shopping, garlic chopping, and soup consuming, I try to divorce it from that as much as possible. In fact, when Meagan and I made this again last month pretty much everything in my otherwise depressed world was excellent. Sure you could change some of the ingredients around, but why? It's pretty much perfect as is. And if it's cold where you are (which means anywhere in the United States, with perhaps the exception of South Florida), make this. And pretend it's not a RR recipe. Because her ubiquitousness is pissing me off. And I'm continuing the hate and the boycott.

2.) Salmon with Avocado

This is classy enough for company. Easy enough for a night alone. And requires nothing else to make it a meal except perhaps some coconut rice with some chopped cilantro. Buy Aldi salmon and it's even cheaper. Or if you're in the Hattiesburg area, check out Save-Rite's ridiculously underpriced salmon (color added . . . ew) and you're golden.


1.) Shrimp & Grits

Served now for two birthdays. Made five times this year alone. Being Southern and somewhat amused by my own heritage has made this my signature dish. It's spicy and warm and creamy and has pretty much everything you need right in a heap of delicious. Serve with some collard greens, and you make Paula Dean herself look like a Yank.



So that's it, folks. Erin's top ten dishes of 2006. Tune in soon for a holiday cooking update (brussell sprouts are indeed excellent, Allison) with stories of cauliflower and scallop soup, wasabi sweet potatoes, and cookies aplenty. Happy 2007, all. And remember, you get three opportunities a day to eat. Don't fuck them up.