Crab Cake Canapes

These remind me of my Mom.  

She has been making them for as long as I can remember.  I didn't really acquire a taste for seafood until I was a bit older and am furious I wasted so many years not trying these.  Actually, that's probably why I'm not morbidly obese.  Moving right along...

These are so incredibly delicious.  That's the funny thing about these actually.  People who don't really like seafood (my husband, my brother in law, insert picky relative here) love these.  Like won't stop eating these, love these.

I hope you are getting the picture here because you need to make these.  Like now.

Here are our ingredients.

Premium Lump Crab Meat 

Butter

Mayonnaise 

Garlic Powder

Thomas' English Muffins 

Kraft Old English Spread

Leave your butter out over night so it's at room temp.  If you forgot, no bigs.  Just pop it in the microwave for 10 seconds or so.  Cream in the cheddar spread and half the mayonnaise.  So it's important you get the Kraft Old English spread.  I have tried making this with other cheddar spreads and it doesn't come out right. It's sharp, creamy and delicious.  Do not get imitation, imitation cheese please.

Add the garlic powder.

Add the rest of the mayonnaise. See how adding the second half of the mayo after made it all creamy and fluffy?  This is my new trick.  Charlie actually asked if I did something different.  After making these the exact same way for seven years, I think this small change made a big difference.

You can use regular canned crab meat, but I prefer premium lump crab meat.

Fold the crab into the cheese mixture.

Yum.  Resist the urge to spread this in between your hands and eat them like a sandwich.

Ok so you must use Thomas' English Muffins.  I know that sounds odd, but the whole nooks and crannies thing - it really makes a huge difference for this recipe. The butter/cheese/crab mixture melts into the muffins and magic happens.    I've used other ones out of pure desperation, and they just don't come out as crispy.  I use a serrated knife to cut them in half even though they are "pre cut".  Otherwise you will have one big half and one anemic looking one.  You know what I'm talking about.

Spread the mixture on top of each of the muffin halves and shove four in your face.  I mean put them in the oven.

Place the sheet pan in a 400 degree pre heated oven on a low rack.  You want the bottoms crispy crispy CRISPAYYY.

Once the bottoms are nice and golden brown (about 20 minutes or so), move them up to a higher rack so the tops get golden brown.

Uhuh.  Ok.  Yes.  Yes please and thank you.

So this is what the bottom looks like.

Notice how you can see the grains of the English muffins?  That's because the topping melted into the muffin.  I can't really describe it.  You'll just have to try it for yourself.

Once you do, you can just write me a love letter.  My address is 423 I love Cheese Street, in Crabville, USA. Stay hungry!

Crab Cake Canape Recipe 

1 Can Premium Lump Crab Meat 

1 Stick Butter

1/2 Cup Mayonnaise, separated  

1/2 Tsp Garlic Powder

1 Pkg Thomas' English Muffins 

1 Jar Kraft Old English Spread

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Cream room temp butter, cheese spread, and half of mayonnaise together.  Add garlic powder.  Fold in the rest of the mayonnaise and then add crab meat.  Cut the English muffins in half and spread the crab mixture on the top of the muffins.  Bake on a low rack for 20 minutes, or until the bottoms are very crispy.  Move muffins to a higher rack for another five minutes or so, so tops become nice and golden brown.  Server immediately and enjoy!

Un-Christmasing your Home

January already. Sigh.

In addition to removing all of the blatant Christmas decorations, here's what I've done to keep our house festive without it looking like I'm living in the past (i.e. last holiday season).

I usually keep my poinsettias as long as they're alive. I've popped ours into a teal planter which seems less Christmasy and more wintery:

I've also removed all bows from my Thanksgiving wreath - it's just hanging on our front door, unadorned, and I love how simple and wintery it is.

Finally, in our entry way, I replaced our Christmas paper quilt with a piece I bought in Seattle... a little penguin in a winter scene:

Have you taken all of your Christmas decorations down yet?  Do you have any winter decorations that make their way out this time of the year?  Let me know how you've switched up your decor and stay homey!

Sweet and Savory Kielbasa

Well wasn't this just a late night snack gone right.  

I'm part Polish.  Which means I get to eat kielbasa anywhere, anytime.  Even at 2am. 3am?  Doesn't matter.

Yummmmmyyyyyy.  Crunchy, sweet, salty, heaven.  Come along on my late night munchy journey.

Because it was at 2am, the lighting is a little...how should I say this...bad?  That's the thing about late night snacks.  There isn't a lot of day light. Weird.

Anyway, here are our ingredients:

Kielbasa 

Apricot Preserves 

Dijon Mustard 

Ground Ginger 

Cut the 'basa up into quarter inch pieces and get it all nice and crispy over medium heat.  Resist the urge to stir these around.  Let them form a nice crust on each side. 

Mix the sauce together, the apricot preserves, Dijon mustard and ground ginger powder.  Here is where you can get creative.  One more glass of wine and who knows what would have gone into this.  You can add soy sauce, Sriracha, Asian stir fry sauce, whateva.

Yes yes yes.

Throw the sauce in.

And mix her up.  Did you notice that half are these are gone?  I literally have zero willpower.

Get ready to eat.  Lots of these.  Or in my case, more of these.

I served these with yellow mustard and Sriracha.  Because if I served these with brown mustard my husband would divorce me.

Mmmmm.  So Midwest of me.  Stay hungry! 

Sweet and Savory Kielbasa Recipe

1 Package of Kielbasa 

1/2 Cup Apricot Preserves 

1 Tbs Dijon Mustard

1/4 Tsp of Ground Ginger 

Slice kielbasa in quarter inch pieces.  Brown kielbasa in a skillet over medium high heat.  Mix preserves, mustard, and ground ginger together.  Once kielbasa is nice and crispy, add the preserves to the skillet and mix.  Serve with mustard or any other delicious condiment you can think of.  Enjoy! 

A Handy Headboard

We had a bed frame for the queen-sized guest bed, but no headboard, and so after a trip to the fabric store and the Home Depot, I decided to try my hand at making an upholstered headboard.

There are plenty of tutorials out there for DIYed headboards (check them out here, here, & here), so I won't bore you with the details, but here's how it turned out:

It's plush, sturdy for leaning up against (it's backed with plywood, not just a frame), and adds a burst of color to our yet-unpainted guest room.  I need to find some bedding that complements the red headboard - for now, we've got some turquoise Garnet Hill sheets on there.

Stay homey!

Cranberry Green Onion Dip

Ok, ok, ok.  I realize this is the oddest sounding dip ever.  

But, would I lead you astray?  It's absolutely delicious.  Trust me! Charlie's Aunt Chris made it for Christmas and I couldn't stop eating it.  I literally picked it up and moved it away from the other 34 guests so I could eat it alone.  At the bar in the kitchen.  I'm not joking.  Uhem.

Just four ingredients here people!

Dried Cranberries 

Green Onions 

Sour Cream

Cream Cheese 

You don't have to use a stand or a hand mixer, but I would recommend it if you are blending cream cheese. I don't know, it just comes out creamier.  I saw my Aunt Chrissy do this over Thanksgiving and realized that's why her cheese ball is always better than mine.  Never again.

Mix the two ingredients until blended, about a minute or so.

I love this picture.  It's as though God is saying, Jaisa, you should be eating this dip today.  Thanks God!  I completely agree.

Blend the cranberries and green onions into the cream cheese mixture until well blended.

YUM.  This is so savory and sweet and creamy and awesome.

Spread a little on your cracker of choice...

...and inhale.  Stay hungry! 

Cranberry Green Onion Dip Recipe 

1 Block of Cream Cheese

1/3 Cup of Sour Cream

1/3 Cup of Dried Cranberries, roughly chopped 

1/3 Cup of Green Onions, chopped 

Cream sour cream and cream cheese together.  Add green onions and cranberries.  Mix all ingredients together.  It gets better with time, so let rest for at least and hour before serving.  Sprinkle some cranberries and green onions on top as a garnish and serve with crackers.  Enjoy! 

12 Homey Goals for 2012

Happy New Year, dear readers!  With 2012 laid in front of me, full of possibilities, I've decided to make a list of homey projects we'd like to complete this year.  Some are simpler than others, but when I get them all done, our place should really feel like home.  Here goes...

1) Decorate Our Master Bedroom 

There are some very bare walls in our bedroom.  We managed to paint them a light grey blue when we moved in but haven't done anything since then.  Boring!

 2) Start Keeping Bees

Our property has a side lot that's maybe 2 acres and it's the perfect spot for me to keep a beehive. Since my city days, I've been dreaming of keeping bees. As an anniversary gift, Jaisa & my friend Jen (& their hubbies) sent us a beginner beekeeper's set. This spring I need to set it up and order my hive...

3) Build Built-In Bookshelves for Library

We have a room off of the kitchen that we call our "library", but it's really just a few bookshelves and most of the stuff we're not sure where to put yet.  By the end of the year, I want to get built-in bookshelves in there, as well as a window seat.

4) Finish Painting 

You'd think we could have at least finished painting the downstairs in 2011.  Not so.  We still have a bunch of walls that still need to be painted.  Or, as below, need to be finished.

5) Make use of our 5th Bedroom 

Our master bedroom is on the first floor of our house and upstairs, we have four more bedrooms. One is my office, one is the guest room, one is the den/man cave/media center (we're still deciding on the verbiage...), and one is currently sitting empty. In 2012 I want to make it useful... Jesse wants a shuffleboard room. I want a second guestroom. Let's see if we can come up with a compromise on this...

6) Sew a quilt

 I have a sewing machine I hardly ever use and I want to try a challenging sewing project in 2012. I need to start small but I want to finish the year having made a quilt. An awesome one.

7) Hang up art we already own

 Jesse and I have a lot of art from our Brooklyn apartment that still hasn't been hung up yet.  Here are some prints that I LOVE that we had hanging in our old living room (taken in an iPhone picture by Jaisa):

8) Outdoor Living Room

Our house has some space on the back porch that could easily fit some chairs and a table and maybe some sort of sofa. Before next summer, I want to turn this space into an outdoor living room where we can relax on warm evenings.

9) Guest Bathroom 

We have a little half-bath that guests use on our first floor and it's a total mess. There's a stain on the ceiling caused by a leak that happened before we moved into the house, the room is dark and windowless, and it's a boring beige. Time to update this tiny little room.

10) Vegetable Garden 

Our house came with an organic vegetable garden in the side yard that's 800 square feet, the exact size of our apartment in Brooklyn.  We totally let it go this summer, but next spring I want to get in there and start growing our own vegetables.

11) Map Wall 

Since a trip to Vieques in 2007, Jesse and I have been collecting maps to hang up.  When we moved into this house, we conveniently (finally!) had a space to hang them all.  Here's where we want them to go (and a shot of how we're starting to space it out):

12) Organize Jesse's Office

On the first floor of our house, overlooking the front yard, Jesse has a little office that's been taken over by paperwork, unpacked boxes, books, and Fred the hound.  We'd like to paint it, design a better storage system, and maybe get a nice comfortable little dog bed.

What are your goals for this year?  Now that you've seen mine, I can't back out.  Get ready for big things... and stay homey!

Panozzo's

A lot of people ask me how I come up with my recipes.  Besides the fact that I spend all day every day dreaming about food, I often get inspiration from the outstanding food in Chicago.  Every weekend Charlie and I head out and try something new.  We recently saw Panozzo's on Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives so we went to check it out.  This time, I photographed our sandwiches so I could share with you how amazing they are. 

This is Panozzo's Porchino sandwich.  It's.  To.  Die.  For.  This is the description from the restaurant:


‘Like Italian Carnitas’ is the best description for this delicious assault of fat and flavor. We chunk up our house porchetta, cook it down in its own juices then pile it onto a Bolino roll and crown with pickled fennel.  

Delicious assault is right.  Oh baby.  They balance the butteriness of the pork with light, crispy pickled fennel.  Sound familiar? This was my inspiration for Porchetta and Pickled Fennel Crostini.

Mmmmm.  The crispy bread soaks up all of the juice, working like a flavor sponge.

We also got their meatball sub.  Their meatballs are unbelievably moist.

Yum.  I think they put raisins in their meatballs to add a touch of sweetness.  This works perfectly because the banana peppers add a kick of heat.  Where are your favorite weekend spots?  Stay hungry!