Whether it’s having guests over for dinner or bringing your contribution to a pot luck, is there something that you prefer to make or are expected to serve?
When we have family gatherings at my mom’s, it’s pretty much a given that I have to bring deviled eggs. I’m not sure how that got started - it’s not something we had at home when I was a kid. But my MIL serves them often, and I discovered how easy they are to do.
At Easter time, I’ll even dye the boiled whites with food coloring to make pretty pastel egg halves. When I was still working, I’d bring a big tray to luncheons or picnics at work, and they were pretty much inhaled. There’s nothing fancy or exceptional about them, but people still seem to like them. Altho I’ve added this recipe recently and it’s been a big hit.
What do you make in similar situations? Feel free to share recipes.
For the last couple years it’s been home made cheesecake. Dead easy and I can do it lots of different flavors.
A plain cheesecake is two blocks of cream cheese, two eggs, sugar, flavoring, ( either vanilla or almond or both) a pinch of salt, and a splash of milk. Wizz it around in a processor, pour it into a graham cracker crust, and bake it, bada bing you got cheesecake.
For chocolate, add a packet of pudding, some chocolate syrup or chocolate powder, or all of the above.
For pistachio, add a pack of pistachio pudding
.
Lemon, add some lemon juice and a bit of zest. same with lime.
Caramel is easy too, just make a plain cheesecake and then you boil a can of sweetened condensed milk for a few hours (in a sealed can) and it makes an awesome caramel sauce . Just pour on top of the finished cheesecake.
You can add strawberries blueberries raspberries whatever you want… Once, I even added some cake mix to it and made a red velvet cheesecake.
If I’m coming to Thanksgiving, family wants me to bring dill rolls. Anything else is optional, but these eggy sweet buttery soft dilly rolls are a hit.
For potlucks, it’s either heavily-spiced pimento cheese (cumin, smoked paprika, cayenne, garlic) or herbed buttermilk cheese biscuits.
People who know me don’t let me show up at their shindig without bringing my Banana Pudding (or two). I use the Keebler Elves recipe, but Nabisco Vanilla Wafers (sorry, Ernie). Plus, I really load up on the bananas–recipe calls for 2 or 3 large, I use 12-ish per big-ass bowl. And the secret is: get it into the fridge ASAP (with one of those shower cap dealies, preferably) and DO NOT TOUCH for 24 hrs. Be sure you’re packing heat when you arrive at the wingding.
Potato latkes, though I make them fresh. Run the potatoes and an onion through the food processor using the grating blade. Mix with flour/matzo meal/breadcrumbs, and a couple of eggs. Add salt* and pepper , then fry in a pan.
Crepes. One Egg, 1/2 cup flour, 1/4 cup milk and 1/4 cup water. Cook in a 9" pan. Makes four crepes and can be scaled up.
I am the designated cheesecake person, too. My recipe is a little different, though.
5 blocks of cream cheese, pinch of salt, 1.5 c sugar, 1/3 c sour cream, 2t lemon juice, 2t vanilla, 6 eggs. Food processor all that stuff.
I do a crust of chocolate wafers zapped in the food processor, mixed with melted butter and baked in the springform for 10 min. Cool crust.
Oven to 500 bake filling 10 min, lower to 250 continue baking for 1.5 hours.
For chocolate I lower to 4 blocks of cream cheese and add 8-12 oz melted chocolate.
This past year I came up with a “keto friendly” cheesecake based on raw cashews. It was OK, but not as good as a real one.
In spring time I’m required to bring rhubarb crumble or pie from my rhubarb patch.
I have become the family pastry chef, for reasons that would take me too long to explain. Long story short, I’m expected to bring a couple of pecan pies and a couple of pumpkin pies to every family dinner.
The family raves about my pecan pie. RAVES about it. My brother-in-law’s pot dealer used to trade me a dimebag for a pecan pie every Thanksgiving.
The thing is, there’s absolutely nothing special about my pecan pie. I use a crust that would get me thrown out of any respected culinary school if I was caught making it. I follow the recipe on the Karo Corn Syrup website to the letter.
The only difference – if indeed, there even is a difference – is that I buy whole pecans and smash the shit out of them, rather than buying chopped ones. It may be the placebo effect, but in my mind pecans that were whole 15 minutes before I chopped them and put them into the pie will have more flavor because of oils released, or something.
My wife and I sort of split the culinary skills; we’re both good cooks (I tend toward grilling/smoking and ethnic/foreign dishes, and she leans into more classic American dishes). She’s a fantastic baker, and I’m a fairly solid amateur mixologist if I do say so myself.
My best dish overall is probably pizza, although that’s more of a collaboration. She makes the dough and crusts most of the time, while I make the sauce and bake them. Topping them is sort of haphazard- I do it, she does it, our kids do it and all the combinations therein.
I know how to make crust, but at this stage of my life, I’ll either buy frozen-in-a-pan crusts or use the round ones that you unroll into your own pie plate. They taste fine and I don’t have anything to prove. But I do make a killer lemon meringue, and I also get raves over my MIL’s peach streusal pie. I used to be the designated pumpkin pie supplier on Thanksgiving, but in recent years, people seem to have become bored with it - can you imagine???
Mine is made with an amount of flour, an amount of vegetable oil, an amount of salt, and an amount of ice water, I have the proportions written down somewhere. It is by no means the perfect, flaky trust that a true pastry chef would prize, but it beats a frozen, store-
bought one.
For each pound of ground meat I use one onion, at least one clover of garlic, 1/2 tsp salt, one egg, and one slice of bread. I dice the onions and garlic and sauté them before mixing in the other ingredients. But the main thing is to sauté the onions and garlic and use plenty of garlic. I bake it for about a half hour per pound.
I just remembered that some years back, my nephew used to ask me to make Swedish meatballs. I’m not sure where that came from, since I’d never made them before he asked. Then after a few years, he stopped asking. Not sure if they were that bad (but there were never leftovers) or his tastes changed. Who knows?
I got into a phase of making chocolate brownies from scratch when I was in college. Then, on a whim, I threw Reeses peanut butter chips in. It came out horrible, but I played with the recipe until it worked.
Then I started bringing them to parties and then it became an expected thing. And then the phase kinda passed and I’m still kinda expected to bring them to parties so I just use a boxed mix*# and use 1Tbsp less oil, stir 100x (instead of 50x) by hand, and then throw a half-bag of Reeses chips in and stir until they’re evenly distributed. I learned to use a pastry-decorator’s bag without a tip to plop mini cupcake cavities (24-cup silicone molds) 3/4 full of batter and bake at regular temperature to the minimum specified time. Plop 'em out on a rack to cool and throw 'em in a plastic container to carry them to the party. The bite-sized portions are easy for guests to grab-and-go.
On the first day of work after we return from the holidays, I bring in a 9.5 x 13 pan of brownies with Heath Bar bits on top with the announcement that I’m trying to be the very first to offer a gift and wish my coworkers a Merry Christmas for the year.& As with the “Reeses’ Brownies” above, I use a boxed mix now-a-days. After making standard brownies, I let the results cool on a rack for exactly 5 minutes% and then spread half a bag of crushed toffee bits across the top. Let it cool for another 5 minutes so the partly-melted toffee will stick to the top. Then cut your squares.
My actual pride, though, is Chinese cooking with a wok. [There are threads gathering dust around here where I’ve rambled on about various details.] Basically, my mother ran a Chinese restaurant for a few years and later taught me several recipes and techniques. When co-workers have asked where to find good Chinese food my response has often been, “Where do I go for really great Chinese food made just the way I like it? I stay home and break out the wok!” But the problem is that I don’t cook to-order. My mother taught me recipes that were family-of-four sized portions and I’ve never supplied my pantry with enough variety or subportions to be able to cook to-order. I just make the family-sized recipes I learned and pack leftovers for later in the week.
–G!
*I know, it’s almost a sacrilege considering how easy they are to make from scratch. #I tend to use Pillsbury Double-Fudge mix, but any mix will do once you’ve crossed that line…
& The fact that I’m 10 months early is irrelevant. I want the bragging rights.
%No more, no less. More and the bits will fail to stick; they’ll fall off and be left in the pan when people serve themselves. Less and the bits will melt to a completely liquid state and the syrup will then disappear into the brownies. People will think they’re very sweet, but won’t realize there’s anything particularly special about them.
I can do amazing things with a blade.
I can even cook!
On Boxing Day (day after Xmas), it’s basically expected that I will make turkey curry, half and half (ie it’s served with half rice and half chips/fries). Dirty food, but so good.
Also, I’ve mastered the art of making an authentic, restaurant style curry - after years of trying every recipe I could find and still never quite hitting the mark, I discovered that the art of making indian restaurant style curry to pre-making a curry gravy as a base. People now look at me in awe and wonder.
I’ve never tried my hand at Indian cuisine, leaving it up to restaurants and food trucks. Then the last Cook’s Illustrated led to me making Chana Masala, and it was outrageously delicious.
But I do make a killer lemon meringue, and I also get raves over my MIL’s peach streusal pie. I used to be the designated pumpkin pie supplier on Thanksgiving, but in recent years, people seem to have become bored with it - can you imagine???