Oktober-Feast

Okay, yes, I am aware that is an incredibly cheesy title.  But I chose it on purpose!  Because this will be by far the post with the most cheese I could possibly munster (seriously, somebody stop me, I know that is a terrible joke and I can't stop myself--turn your heads).   And speaking of embarrassing--side note--yesterday I was looking for sweet potatoes at the grocery store.  I found yams, which I will admit did look a lot like sweet potatoes.  But I couldn't find sweet potatoes.  So there I am, standing in front of the yams and I ask the produce man where I could find sweet potatoes.  He just looks at me with that look that says, please, please lady, don't make me point out your foolishness to your face.  So yeah, for that one other person out there who doesn't know, yams and sweet potatoes are the same thing.

Anyway, last night in Atlanta Sam and I had friends coming over and it felt like fall.  For Sam, this is a tragedy because he is very much a warm weather person, but for this Idaho girl it feels like heaven.  It was time for pumpkins and candles and apple cider and every fall thing.

While Sam planned a trip to Aruba online, 

I lit candles and waved my cinnamon broom in the air and generally cooked myself into a frenzy.

Which brings me to cheese.  Years ago my dad (here pictured at a haunted hotel in Silver City--spoiler alert, future blog on the way!)

went to the library, flipped through a cookbook and copied out a French recipe for cheese bread.  Now, my dad is not usually one to copy recipes, but he has very good instincts about food and must have known he was holding a classic.  Years later it is still a family favorite.  Some people think that Southerners like Paula Dean have taken the prize for putting the most fattening foods together.  I tend to think that the French had cornered the market on fat centuries ago.  Whoever the winner is, no one can dispute that this is a ridiculously fattening recipe.  Seriously, I have no defense for this amount of cheese.   If you like cheese, you will love this and that's all that needs to be said.  There is just enough butter and eggs in here to hold the cheese together.  

Cheese Bread 

1 stick of butter

1 1/4 c. flour

4 eggs

3 cups shredded cheddar cheese

1 cup shredded swiss cheese (the kinds of cheese don't necessarily make or break it, just the amount)

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. ground black pepper

1 garlic clove, minced

2 jalapenos, finely chopped (I never put these in, but you can if you want to)

1/4 cup yellow onion, finely chopped

1/8 tsp. cayenne (I put in red pepper flakes when I don't have cayenne)

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.  In a medium sized sauce pan, melt the butter over a medium heat.  Add all the flour at once, stirring over the heat until it incorporates into the butter to become one big ball. Take the pan off the heat.  Add the eggs, one at a time, fully stirring in one before adding the next. Add the cheese.  (The mixture will be hard to stir so I hope you've been working out. And if you have, all your good work is about to be undone, so sorry about that.) Stir in the spices, garlic and onion. Bake in a greased cast iron skillet or 9 x 9 pan for 40-45 minutes. I would make the slices on the smaller side since there is enough cheese in there for your daily allotment of calories.

This is my cheese bread just ready to come out of the oven:

Now, much as we all love cheese, it wouldn't look good to serve it by itself.  So we needed some soup. This recipe for turkey chili is really easy and I love the flavor.  Hopefully you will, too.  You can mess with this recipe and it will turn out fine.  I sometimes add some kidney beans when I'm moody and rebellious.

Indian Summer Turkey Chili

(page 31 for those of you who have my cookbook)

2 TBSP extra virgin olive oil

1 1/4 lbs ground turkey

1 TBSP grill seasoning

1 TBSP ground cumin

2 TBSP Worcestershire sauce

2 TBSP hot sauce (I can only do 1/2 TBSP, I'm a wimp)

1 large yellow onion, chopped (reserve 1/4 of the onion for topping the chili)

2 bell peppers, any color, cored seeded, and chopped

3/4 cup (1/2 bottle) beer

28 oz. can tomato sauce

1/2 cup smokey barbecue sauce

1 cup frozen corn 

Heat a pot over medium to high heat.  Add the olive oil and ground turkey.  Season the meat with the chili powder, grill seasoning, cumin, Worcestershire, and hot sauce.  Break up the meat with the back of a wooden spoon into small crumbles.  

Brown the meat for 5 minutes, then add the onion and bell peppers and cook for 10 minutes more.  Add the beer and deglaze the pan, scraping up the drippings and cooking off the alcohol.  Add the tomato sauce, barbecue sauce, and corn and bring the chili to a bubble.  Let the chili simmer for 10 minutes.  Adjust the seasonings and heat level to your taste.  Remove from the heat and serve.

Chili is such a temperamental model at night...

Of course, what would our party be without apple cider?  It is so easy to make, and it makes the house smell so good.  Just get a gallon of apple juice, throw in a couple of cinnamon sticks and some whole cloves, and heat on the stove.  Yum.

And finally, what would fall be without a cookie?  Since we already had molasses cookies and Sam and I still have some of those in the freezer, I thought blondies were in order.  

Blondies

• 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup butter
• 2 cups packed brown sugar
• 2 egg
• 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 to 1 cup of chopped pecans (or any other nut you've got lying around).
• 
  
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a bowl and set aside.

In a mixing bowl, combine butter and brown sugar.  Add the eggs and vanilla and mix in thoroughly.  Then through in the flour mixture and finally add the chopped nuts.  Bake for 20-25 minutes in a greased 9 x 13 pan.

So cute in their Polish pottery!

Here they are by candlelight

Happy October everyone!  From us, the hard living, cranky people in bad lighting...

This photo was taken pre-cheese bread