Day 19: National Popcorn Day

A food holiday I can get behind. Normally I air pop my corn, but every now and then I'll cook some on the stove. Coconut oil, corn kernels. Get a decent arm workout when you shake the pot around. Usual toppings include avocado oil, smoky salt, nutritional yeast.

Day 18: National Gourmet Coffee Day

A family member recently visited the Philippines, and all I got was coffee. Not that I mind.

Day 17: Hot Buttered Rum Day

Let me start of with this - this isn't bad.

Mixed drinks can be tricky. Especially when they are warm, and call for ingredients like... butter.

Alcoholic butter coffee anyone? 

I'm not sure how true to the recipe this drink was, but when I saw you could use either water OR cider I was all in. This drink was hot cider, spiced rum, butter and spices. And guess what... tasted like a hot apple cider. So very drinkable.

Compared to the hot apple cider in made weeks before with Fireball and vanilla vodka, I'd go with the fireball version.

Day 16: International Hot & Spicy Food Day

In honor of this international food holiday, I decided to make a popular spicy Filipino dish, Bicol Express.

Bicol express is a stew made with pork, sauteed shrimp paste, coconut milk, the usual aromatics (garlic and ginger) and chilies. Normally pork belly is used, but I picked up one of those stir fry packs that had pork strips. Paid a little bit more, but all I had to do was chop up the onion and pepper strips into small dice. I only used jalapenos for my heat, but I don't want to kill my stomach. Keep it on the light side.

I roughly followed the bicol express recipe from Yasmin Newman's 7000 Islands: A Food Portrait of the Philippines. When I say roughly, I mean I glanced at the page to make sure I got the right ingredient in at the right time. Measurements I didn't really follow.

I'm a little worried about tomorrow's food holiday - hot buttered rum. What is that?

Day 15: National Strawberry Ice Cream Day

I practiced some self restraint here - only ate half of it. I'll save the rest for tomorrow.

Today is also national fresh squeezed juice day, but screw that. Give me ice cream.

Day 14: National Hot Pastrami Sandwich Day

Today was not a very good day. For a number of reasons (craziness at work, Steelers losing). The only thing that got me through the day was knowing I would be partaking in today's holiday.

Best hot pastrami sandwich I ever had was in Baltimore. But then again, I ate a lot of good food when I was working down there. In New York? Eh... maybe Katz? Never really searched out for it. 

Couldn't find many places up here that serve hot pastrami sandwiches at 7pm on a Sunday. Ended up grabbing this one from Market Bistro in Latham. Marbled rye, mustard, sliced onion. Mushroom barley soup. Black cherry soda. I would have enjoyed this more if the bread didn't fall apart. Chips tasted fishy. Soup wasn't seasoned very well. 

Makes me wonder if I should try the other places in their food court. And do people eat in that restaurant? I saw a sign for prime rib on the weekends.

Day 13: National Gluten-Free Day

How cruel Mother Nature can be. From 60 degree temps to snow and temps closer to zero. Evil! Mean! Thankfully I was off today, so I could sleep in. After a couple of cups of coffee I headed to the apartment where I primed a wall or two and tried my best to scrape crap off the floors. 

Exciting, that's me.

After a few hours I gave up on fixer upping and dragged M to Nine Pin to start on our 26er Challenge. The first cider was Blueberry Pancakes, made with New York State blueberries and maple syrup. Not bad. Followed that up with a flight of all of their ciders, and my gluten free item of the day was complete.

Day 12: National Glazed Donut Day

I think the word was out that today is glazed donut day. But I'll take the glazed twist. It's like bicho bicho... except a different sugar coating.

I wonder if they make these in store. Not a sign of Rockland Bakery in sight.

Day 11: National Milk Day

I write this after I've used up the last of the half & half in the house. I suppose I could break into these in a pinch, but no. I have these cans set aside for a future batch of leche flan. Perhaps sous vide.

Day 10: National Bittersweet Chocolate Day

Another day to celebrate chocolate. 

During the first lecture of one of my pastry classes we covered the origin of chocolate and the different types. Unsweetened chocolate, as the name implies, has no sugar and is just pure chocolate. Bittersweet has at least 35% pure chocolate and some sugar. Semisweet also has at least 35% pure chocolate, but adds in cocoa butter along with sugar.

Depending on the country of origin, bittersweet may also be labeled as dark chocolate. What's important is the percentage of pure chocolate. I like the dark chocolates, but nothing too bitter. Usually go with something in the 50% range. Higher than that would be best used in cooking, not eating.

Day 9: National Apricot Day

Are they even in season right now? Can't recall having a fresh one. 

Dried apricots.

Better than prunes.

Fin.

Day 8: National English Toffee Day

Toffee. 

That's just a misspelling of coffee, right?

Sigh.

If I had to pick a candy, toffee wouldn't be it. Hard candies are just... bleh. To me.

I forget how I came across this recipe for layered toffee bars. Pinterest, most likely. Crackers... sugar... butter... chocolate? There are more ingredients, of course, but I'm hitting the highlights. And I had all the ingredients, even the crackers, go figure.

Making this was surprisingly easy, but be careful when making the toffee part. Because. Molten hot liquid that hurts like a mother when you accidentally splash it on your skin. And drop the pot.

Needless to say I had to redo the toffee part.

I tried a little bit. It was okay, but still not my thing. My co-workers loved it, and it disappeared quickly.

Day 7: National Tempura Day

Pretty sure any food holidays that involving fried goods will have me just go out and buy it. Such as this tempura. I've tried my hand at tempura before. 

The end results were not good.

So ordering it is.

Just an appetizer, because I'm usually weary of the stuff. Most times it's not done right and is greasy. This was done right. 

If you're wondering, I got this from Nishiki Sushi in Rensselaer. I'll have to check out some more of their menu soon.

Day 6: National Shortbread Day

I could have gone so many different ways with this food holiday. Post holidays, I've seen Walker shortbread cookies on sale. So I could have bought those and talked about it. But even on sale it was a bit too pricey for my taste. And shortbread cookies are a year-round deal. Like November. For Movember. That's when I baked these cuties.

I've been on a cookie kick, and doing more with decorated cookies. These are gluten free, made with almond meal. Not the blanched like the recipe had called for, but regular ol' almond meal. I like the built in speckles. And I gotta say, they were pretty good!

I've been trying to find the exact recipe I used, but it's stuck in one of my many cookbooks I have out. What I do know is this recipe from King Arthur is one of the recipes I tagged to try out. And you don't just have to use almond flour - cashew or hazelnut would be good options.

Day 5: National Whipped Cream Day

If I have to have whipped cream, it would be on a pie. Like the ones your would see at Grandma's. Swiss Chocolate Almond. Chocolate Cream. Strawberry. And the like. Otherwise, it's just not my thing. 

Long day at work called for ice cream. And I suppose some whipped cream. See that glob? That's my partaking in this day. Let's move on.

And if you are wondering, there are a couple of donuts and a glass of wine behind the ice cream. Like I said, it was a long day at work.

Day 4: National Spaghetti Day

Last year when I thought about doing this food holiday year, I was adamant I plan things ahead. 

Ha. Plan. Me. Ha.

I am a fly by the seat of my pants person through and through. Such as today's holiday.

It's national spaghetti day today, and I wanted to make spaghetti and meatballs. But I wanted to make Jolibee style spaghetti and make meatballs with the same filling as lumpia shanghai. Perfect spin, right? But when I checked the kitchen, I had none of the ingredients to make any of this. Not even the spaghetti. Pretty hilarious, considering the fridge is packed with a ton of stuff. Same goes with the pantry.

So my compromise was sesame noodles and stir fried wonton meatballs. The recipe for the noodles can be found on Rasa Malaysia. The meatballs are from Nom Nom Paleo.

Day 3: National Chocolate Covered Cherry Day

Clearly, these holidays were made for the sake of having a reason to eat certain things.

Not really a fan of chocolate covered cherries. The ones I usually see are on shelves around Valentine's Day, cherry cordials that are an abomination. Don't buy them... please.

The chocolate dipped maraschino cherries pictured above, were from a 4th of July years ago. Hill Street Cafe was doling them out and it wasn't bad. The cherries were soaked in liquor - I think it was vodka. Not saying it was the best thing ever, but it was decent enough for me to think about making them at home. At some point. It only took a few years.

Currently soaking cherries in some sake. Will dip them in white chocolate and dust them with matcha  powder. And after that, bourbon, dark chocolate, Hawaiian black salt.

Day 2: National Cream Puff Day

If I didn't have the job I have now I could have made a batch of these today for your blog reading pleasure. Or, I could have planned better and wrote all these posts last week.

Next time.

Cream puffs really aren't that hard. Mastering the choice can take getting used to, but the filling can be as simple as box pudding and whipped cream from a can. These puffs were filled with mousseline cream and a cooked berry mix.

Day 1: National Bloody Mary Day

And a very happy new year to you all! I said last year would be the year I would start blogging again. But you know how that turned out.

Let's try again, shall we?

I read an article recently, where the writer complained about too much fluff before a recipe. And I get it and admit I am guilty of doing the same thing. Like what I'm doing now.

Perhaps if I drop that, I will overcome my writer's block and post more often. 

FYI, there is no recipe to jump to here. Today is National Bloody Mary Day. So I'm celebrating this fact, and perhaps you will be inclined as well.

Vodka - I used one from Detroit City Distillery

Tomato juice - say no to Clamato

Sriracha - I know tabasco is traditional, but I'm out of it

Horseradish - I keep two bottles in my fridge at all times

Maggi - Worcestershire is not M friendly

Old Bay - much better than celery salt

No ice. And the olives were kinda bleh. Thank goodness the snacks made up for it.