Family and close friends typically get a pie from me on their birthday. Most requested are pecan and apple crumb, though I have a holdout each for cherry and blueberry.
If I don’t make red velvet cake with flour icing (not cream cheese!) for Christmas, there is pouting.
I also do an oven roasted asparagus with brown butter sauce that people swear they cannot replicate even with the recipe. It has five ingredients including the asparagus, so I’m not sure what they could be screwing up. But whatever.
I have one friend who periodically asks wistfully when I’m making chicken and sausage gumbo again, and another who checks for meat pies when I bring things to a potluck. Mostly, though, people look for my blueberry and cream cheese pie. I’m not sure just why it’s so popular, but it always goes fast.
Olive and sundried tomato tapenade with baguette slices
Smoked salmon spread/dip
No recipes per se; they’re simple to make, but for some reason I get asked for those a lot.
Roast chicken, smoked pork shoulder (I do this in tandem with my husband–the rub and sauce are mine, the smoker is his), roasted Brussels sprouts, garlic mayonnaise, and I make the best rub for grilled steaks and chops you’ll ever have.
I made chocolate truffles as gifts last Christmas, and I’ve heard about them every time I’ve seen Div’s family ever since, especially from one particular cousin who swears my rum truffles were the greatest rum truffles she has ever tried in her life, and who keeps begging me to make them again. I have only ever made them the once but it would seem that truffles (and rum truffles in particular) are now my signature dish.
For birthdays, my family always wants me to make a Hershey Bar cake. For friends I tend to modify it into a two layer cake with cherry or raspberry filling, and I use an appropriate liqueur instead of vanilla. But the family likes the original recipe.
For Thanksgiving - the one next month, not the one today - my apple pie is a big favorite. I heap it full of apples and the crust is fairly high - my Mom say it reminds her of the pie you’d see cooling on a window sill on TV.
-D/a
Either lumpia, or my mother’s version of piroshki (which she called “perushke”, as do I). Also, turkey dinner, which sounds simple to most people, but for some reason a lot of people really screw the pooch on that one.
My ex used to love a Parsee style chicken (or lamb) curry I made with apricots, but my husband detests fruits in curries so I’ve never tried it on him. However the other day he hoovered down a Singapore Chili Prawn curry which is spicy-sweet so I’m thinking of going ahead and making it anyway because the way I made it, the apricots dissolved during the pressure cooking process.
Hey Tapioca Dextrin…would love a recipe for your chana masala. My husband doesn’t like mine for some reason. Fussy bastard. That’s what I get for marrying a North Indian.
Several things
My holiday turkey based on Alton Brown’s brine and cooked on the grill, my maple glazed Cajun planked salmon is always a hit, ribs I love to do ribs, my chili in a crockpot is requested at every pot luck, and I have a grilled peach desert that people love.
For my daughter: Huacho sausage and scrambled eggs.
Family: Pasta with beef and dried Porcon mushrooms (Strogonoff style)
More upscale: “Thai chicken”
Eat until we die: Oven + electric grill BBQ ribs
