Dijon Devilled Eggs + Giveaway Winner

Okay, first things first: Mazal Tov to Candace, of Mi Chiamo Candace - she's the grand winner of the Whole Foods mango giveaway ... yay!!!  (Do your best Kermit the Frog arm wave while you say that!)  I'd have sent mangoes to everyone, if I could have!  I'm hoping to do another giveaway of treats (cookies - another yay!) in the next few weeks, so stay tuned for that one.

Next item on the list: Unfortunately, there was a delay in getting my Once Upon a Loaf guest post going on Monday ... computers, meh!  Whaddya gonna do with 'em???  Necessary evils.  So, go on over today and read all about my adventure in making matzah for the first time - it was so much fun!

Now, on to today's entertainment ....

At one of the Seders I attended at Passover, the topic of devilled eggs came up.

Everyone has a favorite recipe; some add chopped ham or salami, some add hot sauce, some add horseradish, some add dill.  There is no wrong way to make these simple but delicious treats!  And since I always like to tinker with things, I make the base with mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, and dill, but often add other items according to my whims.

These are one of Jeremy's favorite foods, so I usually make them for holidays.  They were ideal for both Passover and Easter, but can be served at picnics and barbecues and "just 'cause."

Dijon Devilled Eggs

6 hard-boiled eggs, peeled, halved lengthwise
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon dried dill
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/4 teaspoon prepared horseradish

Carefully pop the yolks out of the eggs and place them into a small mixing bowl.  Place the whites onto a serving plate.

To the egg yolks, add the mayonnaise, mustard, dill, salt, pepper and horseradish; mix well.  Use a small cookie scoop (if you have one) and place the filling into the cavities of the egg whites.  Decorate the plate with pea shoots or fresh dill or edible flowers or some other colorful splash.

Makes 12 devilled eggs.

International Week -- Polish Dill Pickle Soup

One of my dearest friends in the world, Connie, is 100% Polish; she's also married to a man who's 100% Polish. They are some fabulous cooks, and make a kielbasa that is a true work of art and a most generous gift some years at Easter. (There are too many demands and insufficient quantity to feed all of the ravenous hordes, so I have resigned myself to not being on the "in" list every year ... alas!)

Anyway, Connie is a great cook, as I've already said. So when I went to a horrendously bad Polish restaurant last year, where the one and only redeeming food was the dill pickle soup (don't even ask how leaden and flavorless the blintzes were ... with a filling made from canned mushrooms!), I asked Connie if she would share her recipe with me. (She did; here's the post from AnnArbor.com. And that's her son Andrew, one of Jeremy's best friends, doing the "bunny ears," fyi.)

Connie's soup is very easy to make, and it is some seriously astounding comfort food. But the soup at the restaurant had some flecks of carrot, potatoes, and dill, which Connie's lacked.

So I tinkered a bit by using the original recipe as a base but then adding the other ingredients. It's still Connie's soup, in my opinion, just with a bit more stuff in it.

And it was truly, wonderfully, amazingly delicious!

It may sound odd to pour in juice from a pickle jar, but why use plain ol' water when you can add some depth of flavor? Connie's late mother-in-law used to add a bit of vinegar in her version of this Polish classic; but there's an entire jar full of brine just waiting to find a purpose other than swimming around cucumbers! Do it Connie's way, which she learned from her own mother, whom we call Busha ([BOO-shuh] = grandmother). Busha is in her late 90s now ... the woman knows a thing or two!


Polish Dill Pickle Soup

1 pound pre-cooked kielbasa
1 cup water + water to cover kielbasa
1 tablespoon bacon fat or butter
1 small onion, chopped
3/4 cup juice from a jar of dill pickles, preferably Polish
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 medium potato, cut into 1/2" cubes
1 large carrot, peeled and grated
1/2 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup chopped dill pickles
1 teaspoon dried dill
slices of caraway rye bread, toasted and buttered, because as Connie puts it: “Of course, you have to have a good rye bread to go along with it.”

Place the kielbasa into a medium saucepan, cover with water, and bring to a boil; lower heat and simmer for 1/2 hour. Remove the kielbasa from the saucepan saving the liquid, and slice to desired thickness.

Heat the bacon fat in a small skillet and saute the onion just until translucent. Add to the reserved cooking liquid.

Add the 1 cup of water, the pickle juice, salt and pepper to the saucepan with the onion. Bring to a boil, then add the potatoes and carrot; cook for 20 minutes or until the potatoes are tender when pierced with a fork.

Combine the sour cream and the flour in a medium bowl, then slowly stir in 1/2 cup of the broth until smooth

Whisk this mixture back into the saucepan, bring just to a boil (small bubbles around the edge of the soup), then remove from heat.

Stir in the chopped pickles, the kielbasa and the dill. Serve hot, with the toasted rye on the side.

Makes 4 generous servings.

Still Having Fun While Senility Creeps In

Well, the Docent Invitational Exhibit Reception was held at the Riverside Arts Center this past Saturday night, and I was there twirling in my beautiful new dress in the only pair of high heels that I own.  Jeremy told me that Tom should be sure to let everyone know I'm already taken; and Tom said I looked "like a million bucks" ... :)

But do I have a photo to commemorate my rare and priceless non-officewear, non-jeans, and non-jammies moment?  Did I take a picture of the buffet table that I, of course, meandered over to on "enumeritus" (thank you, "Squidbillies"!) occasions?  Heavens, no!!!  Your foolish Food Floozie switched purses -- bad words that I haven't uttered, literally, in years -- and very inconveniently left her camera at home.

Now, admittedly, the little red purse with sequins was cute, and it was much easier to tote than the behemoth that I usually carry my life around in.  However, while I remembered other critical items like my lipstick and a card bearing the Jewish traveller's prayer (don't leave home without it!), not having brought my camera is really posing (no pun intended -- ha!) some problems for someone who likes to decorate her posts with a little bit of color and with lots of food.

So the one and only picture that I have to offer from Saturday night is the lovely one at the top of the page.  MUCH credit to my beloved, Tom, for taking it before the schmoozing began and further opportunities were lost!!!  But unfortunately, I now have to compensate for the lack of pictures from the actual event by placing props around my home and asking them to pose photogenically for me ... sigh.

Anyway ... let me tell you about those fabulous chocolates that are not yet for sale but will be soon, I hope -- I'll keep you posted when I learn more.  They were made by a friend of Tom's who is a devoted chocolatier in his spare time, after work.  They're raw (only heated slightly, for melting), vegan and organic -- all normally terms that would make me think of tofu and other wretched ingredients not readily placed into my mouth.

But these sinful little tidbits are simply the purest chocolate, with nothing to interfere with your sensual experience.  They literally melt over your tongue as you are transported into a reverie ... I exaggerate not, even though I am admittedly prone to both enthuse and to effuse.  Daniel, the man who creates these magical treats, has located a commercial kitchen for production and is currently networking to seek outlets for sales.  A company name, packaging ... all of those little details are still a-brewing.  But Daniel had better speed up this process, as I steered every one of my guests on Saturday night to the chocolate tray and every single person was nearly in ecstasy from just the small tasting opportunity.

As for the rest of the buffet table -- my vegetable and chip tray with Spicy Mustard Dip (photo taken prior to Saturday night, or else you'd be using your imagination for that, too) seemed to be pretty popular, though no one seemed quite capable of figuring out that the bowl of chocolate stuff surrounded by cookies was yet another type of dip ... sheesh!  Cookies disappeared, but the bowl of chocolate -- bowl of chocolate, may I reiterate! -- was barely acknowledged.  Oh, well -- their loss!  The mini bagels schmeared with a lox-dill cream cheese and then cut into quarters to become bite-sized were also a hit, so I was 2 for 3 with my offerings.

Besides my contributions, there was a Mexican dip in a 9"x13" Pyrex pan that looked remarkably like spaghetti topped with tomato sauce (to my trifocal-ed eyes) until a closer perusal showed beans and sour cream and -- ohhhhh -- shredded cheese underneath the chunks of tomatoes.  It was good, once I figured out what it was!  There was a beautiful cheese tray with very thick asparagus for a garnish (???), lots of fresh fruit, cheesecake, cookies, and more food than I can remember after 4 long days.  (The senility of the title refers not only to having forgotten my camera, but to my inability to even remember why I've walked into the kitchen at any given time, let alone what I ate on Saturday!) There was even a nice assortment of beverages such that I could add dribbles of white wine to my sparkling water, making me feel a bit grown-up in my party dress (but without becoming an embarrassing drunk, since I have perhaps one glass of wine annually and have no tolerance whatsoever).

Tom's father and stepmother drove out to Ypsi from Royal Oak for the event, which was a nice surprise; I'd known they'd been invited, but hadn't expected them to come out.  But as Gary put it, this was a family event and he always shows up for family events ... even though, as Monica pointed out, the Masters was on and her golf-addicted husband was missing it!   Tom's sister Sandy came, as did an old acquaintance from his former writing group.  Several of his co-workers, who are just wonderful, attended -- Daniel (of chocolate fame), Flo, and Sara (whose mom has even commissioned an artwork from Tom after seeing a fabulous piece he'd made featuring a photo of Sara).

Fellow co-workers and very dear friends of Tom's -- Alan and Carol -- had prior commitments and couldn't attend the reception, so they'll get private tours; Carol's will actually be tonight, after dinner at the Prickly Pear (which just happens to be donating 10% of today's proceeds to Alpha House to help the homeless, I might add, which is how it was selected as the restaurant du jour).  I asked Tom to warn Carol that I have the odd habit of photographing my food, so she should be prepared ... though, according to my beloved NYT, I am not alone in this hobby; and I do it for the sake of my faithful readers on AnnArbor.com and Food Floozie, rather than for my own perverse amusement.  Rationalize, and all can be right with the world!

Many of the people I'd invited couldn't attend because they're observant Jews and the reception was held before Shabbat ended after sundown.  But others -- mostly my "bubbes," as I affectionately call the women in their 80s who have adopted me and taught me to play Mah Jong -- came and ate and laughed and, oh yeah, made sure to schmooze with Tom and to fuss over him and to admire his beautiful artworks.  I was thrilled to have them there, and it wouldn't have been the same without their love and support.  I hope they know how special they are to me, and how blessed I felt that they considered this an important occasion to attend ... :)

So, I came, I ate, I schmoozed, I ate, I ate some more, and the reception was a huge success!  Stay tuned for my next post -- "Prickly Pear and Paintings," or something like that ....