Anyway, as you may or may not know, back in April I hopped on a plane down to Argentina to spend time with one of my best friends and her husband, who have been traveling around South America since last summer. (Read his hilarious travel notes here.) Increasingly adventurous Okie BFF Margo rounded out the group.

We rented an adorable apartment in an adorable neighborhood of Buenos Aires and had an amazing time exploring different neighborhoods on foot; eating as many empanadas as humanly possible (mostly at La Cholita); guzzling liters of Malbec and cheap Quilmes beer; people-watching all of the beautiful porteños; soaking up the sun (well, my pastey, vitamin D deprived self did, anyway); reconnecting with old friends; singing along to Band of Horses at a music festival; browsing street markets; eating the best steaks of our lives; side-tripping to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay; fully embracing the siesta culture with daily two-hour naps; staring awestruck at the incredible architecture; watching pirated 30 Rock DVDs; and snacking on alfajores.

Alfajores are traditional Argentine sandwich cookies with a layer of dulce de leche in the middle and coconut around the perimeter. Let me tell you, they taste as good as they sound.

Laura Belle and I decided to make homemade alfajores over the weekend—a somewhat time-intensive undertaking, but one with serious (and delicious) reward. I recommend you do the same. The cookie part of an alfajore is a sugar cookie/shortbread hybrid, made perfectly crumbly with the addition of cornstarch, and the dulce de leche…well, let’s just say that we briefly considered doing away with the whole cookie side of things in favor of eating it with a spoon straight from the jar.

Alfajores
Adapted from here; makes enough for about two dozen sandwiches. Dulce de leche recipe from David Lebovitz; makes enough to fill about two dozen sandwiches.

For the dulce de leche:
1 (14-oz.) can sweetened condensed milk
sea salt

For the cookies:
2 sticks butter, softened and at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg plus 1 egg yolk
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour
1 cup cornstarch
1 tsp. baking powder
1 cup grated sweetened coconut

Preheat the oven to 425˚. Pour the can of sweetened condensed milk into a glass pie pan or shallow glass baking dish. Stir in a few flakes of sea salt. Cover the dish snugly with tinfoil and place in a larger pan, like a roasting pan, baking pan, or a cookie sheet that has high edges. Add hot water to the larger pan until it comes about halfway up the pie pan. Place in the oven and bake for an hour or up to an hour and a half until it’s nicely browned and caramelized, checking it every now and then and adding more water if necessary. (Ours took an hour and a half.)

When it’s done, let it cool and then whisk until smooth. Pour the dulce de leche into a jar with a lid.

Now for the cookie part. Cream the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add the egg, yolk, and vanilla and beat to incorporate. In a separate, medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, cornstarch, and baking powder. With the mixer running, add the dry mixture to the large mixing bowl and beat until the dough forms. Divide the dough into two balls, wrap each one in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least an hour.

After an hour or so, take the dough out of the fridge and roll it out on a floured surface until it’s about 1/4-inch thick. Using a biscuit cutter, round cookie cutter, or a glass, cut the dough into circles and transfer them to a cookie sheet. (We lined it with parchment paper, but that was more out of laziness than anything.) Make sure you make an even number of cookies so each one has a little buddy. We also used two different sizes of glass so we’d have larger (3-inch diameter) and smaller (1-inch or so) cookies.

Bake cookies at 350˚ for 15 minutes or so until they’re slightly browned around the edges. They really keep their shape and won’t puff up or expand while baking. Let them cool and set up a little area for assembly: your jar of dulce de leche, plate of cookies, wax paper with coconut, and another piece of wax paper for the assembled alfajores.

Put a dollop of dulce de leche on one of the cookies and press another cookie on top; be careful not to add too much dulce de leche, or it’ll ooze out of the cookie and make a big mess. You do want a little bit to ooze out, though, to give the coconut something to stick to. Roll the cookie like a wheel through the pile of coconut, set it aside, and repeat with the rest of the cookies.

Now brew some coffee and enjoy your hard work.

I’ve finally uploaded my photos from the trip, so check them out here if you’d like!

Basílica Nuestra Señora del Pilar in Recoleta, Buenos Aires.

I promise I’ll be back really soon with a new recipe or two!

This is the best lasagna ever, hands down. I’m not even going to waste time with some long back story because you need to drop whatever you’re doing and make this right now. (Or, you know, this weekend.) It’s another one of my mom’s old standbys, and with good reason—not only is it everything you’d ever want in a meat lasagna, but it freezes beautifully. Go make it right now!

Mom’s lasagna
Heavily adapted from an old Better Homes & Gardens cookbook. Makes an obscene amount of lasagna—about two pans’ worth, if you’re using the regular glass Pyrex casserole dishes.

1 lb. lasagna noodles
1 lb mozzarella cheese (I recommend 1 lb. as a starting point; I probably used an additional half-pound.)

For the meat sauce:
1 lb. hot Italian sausage
1 lb. ground chuck
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 Tbsp. dried basil
3 tsp. salt
2 1-lb. cans diced tomatoes
2 12-oz. cans tomato paste

For the cheese mixture:
4-5 cups ricotta cheese (I used 5)
3 eggs
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese (don’t use the stuff in a can—grate it fresh!)
4 Tbsp. dried parsley
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper

Slice the Italian sausages open and remove casings. Add sausage and ground chuck to a large (the largest you’ve got) saucepan. Brown the meat until it’s all cooked through. Drain the meat well and return it to the same pan. Add the rest of the meat sauce ingredients to the pan and simmer on medium-low heat, stirring every now and then. At this point, go ahead and get a pot of salted water boiling for the noodles.

In a large mixing bowl, combine all of the cheese mixture ingredients. Add noodles to the boiling water and cook according to the directions on the box.

Slice the mozzarella into 1/8-inch slices. (Totally guessing here, by the way. My slices were a bit thicker than 1/8 inch and I ran out toward the end of the layering process.) Spray your pan(s) with Pam and get everything ready to assemble.

Time to layer! Start with a layer of noodles at the bottom of the pan(s); add meat sauce on top of that and spread it around so it’s an even layer. Next, add some of the cheese mixture and spread it in an even layer. Then, add mozzarella on top. Continue to layer in that order until you run out.

If you’re cooking the lasagna immediately, put it in the oven at 375˚ for 35-40 minutes, until everything’s all bubbly. If you’re going to freeze it, wrap the pan in a couple of layers of tinfoil and put it in the freezer. I took it out of the freezer before I went to work the morning of the dinner party, which gave it plenty of time to defrost before I cooked it that night.

This was also the first use of my new vintage Pyrex casserole dish! I love this pattern and when I saw it—and its $10 price tag—I had to have it.

If you remember from my Key lime pie post—and really, who hasn’t committed it to memory?—one of the only desserts I like as much as Key lime pie is my mom’s chocolate, kahlua, and coffee bundt cake. My amazing mother has always baked birthday cakes for me and my siblings (and Dad), but in the last several years, she’s started a tradition of overnighting homemade birthday cakes to those of us who live out of state. That means that for the last few years on my birthday, I not only receive a big package of birthday goodies and gifts, but also one of these cakes. Wrapped securely in two or three layers of tinfoil and situated in a round tin, my friends anticipate its arrival as much as I do.

I distinctly remember my 20th birthday, when I was a sophomore in college. My parents, younger brother, and grandparents drove over to Athens for lunch at DePalma’s (ohhh how I miss you, spicy penne charmaine!) with me and my three roommates…and this cake. We each had a slice at lunch and then it came with me back to our room at the sorority house, where it was promptly demolished by the end of the night. I think we decided to forgo cutting slices of cake and instead attacked it with forks.

Until a few years ago, I’d never spent my birthday away from my family. The first birthday on my own was my 21st, when I was three weeks into my study abroad in London. It felt so strange to celebrate a birthday so far away from those who had given me life, but I had a couple of friends visiting and so home felt a little bit closer. Since I moved to Seattle in 2008 I haven’t spent a single birthday with my family, and this cake has weirdly become a little piece of home, FedEx’d with love from thousands of miles away.

I think you’ll enjoy it as much as I do, especially if you have a thing for incredibly rich, chocolatey, boozy, coffee goodness.

Chocolate, kahlua, and coffee cake
From my mom; I’m not sure where she got the original recipe. I suppose you could make this in a regular cake pan, but I’ve only ever had the bundt version.

1 package devil’s food cake mix with pudding (I use Pillsbury)
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup brewed coffee (cooled)
1/2 cup kahlua
4 eggs
2 cups chocolate chips (1 bag)

Combine all ingredients except chocolate chips; mix on low speed to blend and then on medium speed for two minutes.

Fold in chocolate chips. Pour batter into a greased bundt pan.

Bake at 300˚ for 60-70 minutes.

I can’t believe I haven’t posted since mid-January. Since then, I’ve had more time on my hands to update this blog than ever. My birthday was on a Saturday, and the three days before it were snow days! The Puget Sound area was hit hard by a snow/ice storm that closed my office for an unprecedented (or so that’s what everyone said) three days; I worked a total of one day that week, as that Monday was the MLK holiday. To be fair, other than the snow days, it’s been a fairly busy month: my birthday party here and here, this dance party, these guys at Tractor Tavern, the best fried chicken I’ve ever had, finance classes (yay!), hunting for treasures in Duvall, a Valentine’s day sing-along, book club, and these retro-sounding newcomers.

I also treated myself to a post-birthday/pre-Argentina trip gift and bought a new camera! I didn’t have it when I took photos of the cake, but here are some shots I’ve taken with it in the last couple of weeks around the house. And yes, you read that right—I’m going to Argentina! Okie BFF Margo and I are meeting up with LB & Rory in Buenos Aires for 10 days or so in late March/early April. Send suggestions for fun things to do, see, eat, and drink if you have ‘em!

Bloody marys for Mckenzie’s birthday brunch.

Beautiful afternoon sunlight through my bedroom curtains.

The Seattle skyline at night from my front window.

Birthday card from Jenn!

I have too many scarves.

Finally, send big birthday wishes and prayers for my grandfather, Papa, who turns 94 tomorrow. He is one of the most special people in the world to me and I’ve learned so much about strength, hope, patience, love, commitment, and—above all—faithfulness from him. I love you, Papa.

Michael and I with Papa and his old truck on the farm. Yes, I had just wet my pants—it was my first time hunting and when Dad fired a shot it scared me so bad that I lost control. Hahaha.

Whether you call it stuffing or dressing, Thanksgiving (and Christmas, in my family) is utterly incomplete without it. I was never much of a dressing fan until a couple of years ago; something about the texture was unappealing, and there were far too many other dishes vying for space on my plate for me to give dressing a real chance.

Strangely, I was converted by the same dressing that’s been present at every holiday meal of my life: oyster dressing. Conventional wisdom would dictate that anyone who has problems with the texture of dressing would probably also find oysters repulsive, but I am anything but conventional. I love oysters—recently had a wonderful meal at one of the best places currently shucking them in Seattle—and I love this oyster dressing.

I might be mistaken, but it seems like oyster dressing is a regional thing—yes, it’s Southern, but it’s more prevalent in coastal areas like New Orleans, Savannah, and Charleston. However it managed to make its way 100 miles inland to the kitchens of my grandmothers, I’m glad it did.

While both of my grandmothers make/made cornbread dressing, neither of them have/had an exact recipe. Once you have all of your ingredients on hand it’s a bit intuitive as to how much broth to use and which spices to add, so what follows is my maternal grandmother’s (Mema) basic guideline for dressing. Oh, and feel free to omit the oysters if you’d like. I followed her precedent and made both oyster dressing and the oyster-less variety; she served hers in separate dishes, but I only had one pan so I fashioned a tinfoil barricade so that oysters (1/3 of the pan) didn’t touch the rest.

Oyster dressing
A combination of my grandmothers’ recipes; makes one large Pyrex dish full of dressing.

6 cups cornbread (I used two boxes of Jiffy cornbread mix)
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
1 1/2 cups chopped celery
4 slices dried bread
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp. dried sage
1 tsp. poultry seasoning
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 carton chicken stock
1 small container fresh oysters (I used canned because I’m a lazy bum)

Make the cornbread, homemade or Jiffy mix. (I used mini muffin tins for my Jiffy because I already had them out.) Break up the cornbread into pieces. This is one step of the process that really depends on your preference; I left my cornbread in larger chunks than my grandmothers (or aunts or mother or cousins or uncles) and ended up liking it like that rather than the smaller chunks. Large chunks give the dish more texture, the lack of which used to be my main issue with dressing.

Anyway.

Put the cornbread in a large mixing bowl. Chop up your onion and celery and sauté them in the butter, and then add them to the bowl with the cornbread. Add the pieces of bread and seasonings, and then stir in the eggs.

Now here’s where it gets dicey. There isn’t a specific amount of chicken broth to add…you just kind of have to add some and determine if it needs more or not. I probably ended up using half of a box of stock. The goal is to add just enough to make the mixture moist, but not soggy.

If you’re making dressing without oysters:
Go ahead and put the mixture into a Pyrex dish.

If you’re making both kinds:
Pour half of the mixture into a dish. Add the oysters to the remaining mixture in the bowl—you can chop them in half or leave them whole—and pour into another dish. (Unless you’re like me and baked them in the same dish.)

If you’re making dressing with oysters:
Add the oysters to the mixture in the bowl (again, whole or halved). Pour into your baking dish.

Bake at 350˚ for 35–45 minutes.

The oyster part of the pan wasn’t quite as popular as the regular dressing at Thanksgiving, but those of us who ate it thought it was tasty! I was quite proud of myself for how it turned out—I’d never made dressing before, or even helped my mom make it.

I hope 2012 is treating you well so far! It’s snowing outside as I type this, as if Seattle could get any more gorgeous than the neon sunrises I saw on my morning commute this past week. I had a wonderful time at home for Christmas and New Year’s—hit all of my favorite places and saw my favorite people, including most of you who read this blog. It all came crashing to a halt the night I returned to Seattle (loooong story) but I’m back in the swing of things and looking forward to what this new year brings.

Like cilantro, George W. Bush, and Oxford commas, Bloody Marys are polarizing—you either love them or hate them. I love them.

And I love this recipe, which was brought to my family by my grandparents many years ago from friends of theirs in Swainsboro. These Bloody Marys are perfect at tailgates, brunches, and, in my family, as a precursor to Thanksgiving dinner. As guests are arriving and the rolls and sweet potato soufflé are warming in the oven, a few cheese straws and a Bloody Mary are just about the perfect thing to get folks mingling before the meal. (At least that’s how it happened when I hosted Thanksgiving last month.)

You can get fancy with the garnishes if you’d like; I stuck to celery stalks, but I love restaurants that serve their Bloody Marys in a glass rimmed with seasoned salt and garnished with a green olive and a spear of pickled okra. One note: these Bloody Marys are best when you mix them up a day ahead of time, and they’ll keep for over a week in the refrigerator (but I doubt you’ll have much left over!).

Bloody Marys
recipe created by an old friend (whose name I have forgotten) of Ralph and Mary Helen Smith. Makes just over a gallon; can be halved (I made half a batch).

1 quart vodka (that’s four cups for all of y’all who don’t know your measurements)
2 large (46-oz) cans V8 juice
1 cup plus 1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1/3 cup worcestershire sauce
7 1/2 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
1/4 tsp. Tabasco (I added more, just ’cause)
garnishes (celery, olives, pickled okra, lemon or lime wedge…I’ve seen asparagus spears and green beans, too)

Mix all ingredients together and chill for at least 12 hours. Serve over ice.

Because it doesn’t seem entirely appropriate to serve Bloody Marys at Christmas (in our family, Christmas Eve is a champagne affair), I suggest making these ahead of time to enjoy on New Year’s Day…perfect as a hair of the dog to sip on while watching bowl games.

Here are a few snapshots from the last month:

The Thanksgiving table (post-dinner)—wish I’d taken a picture of the whole group around the table! Lots of cranberry sauce left, but only a couple of sour cream rolls.

Our “foster kitty,” Pip, doing some Sunday afternoon napping.

The halls (and doors) are decked! I can hardly believe Christmas is a week from today. So ready to be home.

And just because she’s cute and I miss her (she found a permanent home two weeks ago), here’s another one of Pip.

Wow, I was really on a roll there for awhile—cooking up lots of good things and posting almost every week. Well, friends, the last couple of months have been full of change and, consequently, I’ve fallen behind on the blog. (That, and the whole sunset at 5pm thing is not conducive to photographing stuff at night.)

Last month I made what is to date the hardest decision I’ve made in my not-actually-so-short life…I left my amazing, incredible, and a million other adjectives job and co-workers/friends at BCC to take a job at World Vision (another amazing, incredible place). Those of you who got roped into the saga know how long I hemmed and hawed about this decision. For a few days, I’m pretty sure I called my mom every hour on the hour, and the first thing out of my mouth every time was, “I still don’t know what to do.” I never got anywhere near 100% clarity, but at some point I had to make a decision and I chose to do the (somewhat) scary thing. I started at WV last Monday and my first week went about as well as it could have…I’m excited for what’s to come, and inexpressibly grateful for the outpouring of support and encouragement from family and friends (including those co-workers/friends I was leaving behind).

Whew.

How about some pretty flowers?

They’re from a few weeks ago when I hosted an “orphans” Thanksgiving at my house in Seattle for all of those (mostly Georgia and Texas folks) who weren’t going home for the holiday. It was a huge success and the best alternative to not being with my family. I wasn’t brave enough to undertake the turkey, but I made a whole host of other things—all of which were from family recipes. I knew from the beginning that I would make sweet potatoes, so I’ll share that recipe with you first and post about all of the others (including oyster dressing, bloody marys, sour cream rolls, and pecan pie) in the weeks to come.

These also made an appearance:

According to my mom, this recipe appears in the 1970-something First Baptist Church Swainsboro cookbook (my grandparents’ church in Swainsboro, Ga.), but I’m not sure whether my grandmother submitted it or if it was originally someone else’s recipe that she took a liking to. Either way, it entered the family culinary tradition and has graced the table at pretty much every Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner of my life. It can also be made with marshmallows on top, but I prefer the pecan/brown sugar topping for a little crunch. I’m excited to share this recipe with y’all!

Sweet potato soufflé
From the First Baptist Church Swainsboro cookbook; makes a casserole dish full of the good stuff.

3 large or 4 medium sweet potatoes
1 cup sugar (this is why it tastes like dessert)
1/2 stick butter
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. salt

Topping:
1/2 cup pecans
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 stick butter, softened (not melted!)
1/3 cup flour

Peel and cube the sweet potatoes. Make sure the cubes are all the same size so that they’ll cook evenly. Drop them into a pot, cover with water, and bring it to a boil. Continue to boil for 15 minutes, or until a cube of sweet potato breaks apart easily with a fork.

Obviously, I should have used one large stockpot from the beginning, because I ended up using three smaller pots.

Meanwhile, get the butter, sugar, eggs, milk, vanilla, and salt out and ready to go. My mom said she usually puts the butter in the bottom of a big mixing bowl so that it melts easier when you pile the sweet potatoes on top.

When the sweet potatoes are done boiling, drain them and add them to the bowl with the butter. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well.

The sweet potato part of this recipe can be made ahead of time and frozen (I’d recommend it, actually—less work on the actual day). Just let the mixture cool completely, put it into big Ziploc freezer bags or tupperware, and stick it in the freezer. To defrost, put it in the fridge the night before you plan to bake the dish and it should be good to go when you need it.

After you’ve defrosted the sweet potatoes, pour them into a baking dish sprayed with cooking spray. To make the topping, combine the softened butter, brown sugar, flour, and pecans in a small mixing bowl and spread the mixture over the sweet potatoes. A tip for the topping: Leave the butter out to soften way before you plan to make the topping mixture. It takes awhile to soften and it’s essential that the butter is soft (not melted—so no microwaving!). (Pretend like there’s a picture of the pecan/brown sugar topping being mixed in a bowl. And a picture of the dish before it goes in the oven.) Bake at 350˚ for 35 minutes.

Now pretend like there’s a picture of the dish of sweet potatoes fresh out of the oven.

All that was left of the sweet potato soufflé.

Apologies for the lack of photos; the sweet potatoes went into the oven as people began to arrive and I wasn’t about to be that girl who holds up Thanksgiving dinner so that I can photograph the food we were about to eat. To make up for it, here’s a photo of a fraction of the dishes I had to do the next day:

This is plum recipe four of five, and it’s easily the best of them all.

I’d had it in my mind to use this recipe, minus the apples, to make a plum-only pie, until my friend Andrea came over to help me bake one Sunday afternoon and brought with her a paper bag full of apples from the tree in her backyard. Plum and apple pie it was.

Because plums are juicy and get even more so when mixed with sugar and put in the oven, this is a single-crust pie; a double-crust would result it a soggy bottom crust. Therefore, the single crust really has to be spectacular, and I’m happy to report that this crust is amazing. It’s really a big sugar cookie with a hint of lemon and cinnamon and it puffs up perfectly when baked…definitely worthy of eating in its own right, but add sweet, ripe plums and crisp, tart apples, and you end up with the stuff pie dreams are made of.

Plum and apple pie
Again, from Smitten Kitchen. She can do no wrong. I substituted lemon zest for the orange zest she calls for in the original recipe.

Crust:
7 Tbsp. unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. grated lemon zest
1 egg, beaten
1 cup plus 6 1/2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour (excuse the strange quantities; I believe this recipe was adapted from a British recipe)
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
sugar for sprinkling crust

Filling:
1 pound plums, pitted and quartered
1 pound apples, peeled, cored, and cut into smaller chunks (so that everything will bake evenly)
2 Tbsp. sugar
1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon
a squeeze or lemon juice

To make the crust, cream the butter, sugar, and lemon zest until light and fluffy. Mix in the egg, and then slowly add the flour, baking powder, and salt; beat until combined. Scrape dough onto a piece of waxed paper and stick it in the freezer for 20 minutes.

Time to assemble the pie. Preheat the oven to 350˚ and butter a pie dish. In a large bowl (or in the pie dish), add the fruit and sprinkle it with the sugar, cinnamon, and lemon juice. Gently toss it all together a couple of times and transfer to the pie dish.

Roll out the pie dough on a well-floured surface and then lift it onto the pie and trim off the overhang. Feel free to eat some scraps of dough, or use them to make a fancy star on the crust.

Bake for 40 minutes, until it’s lightly golden on top.

The plums turn the most beautiful shade of scarlet, which is lovely when it’s safely in a bowl or in your mouth, but not so much when it’s on your white shirt. So be careful.

I don’t usually post songs on here because I figure once I start, I won’t be able to not post music. However, I’m making an exception for this song because it so wonderfully captures Seattle for me right now (the video was shot around town, I believe). It’s “White Daisy Passing” by Rocky Votolato—enjoy!

Can’t believe it’s been three years.

(The Puget Sound from Carkeek Park, taken my first week here.)

Fall is on the cusp of being in full swing in Seattle…the leaves at the tips of trees are beginning to yellow and red, I’ve been sleeping with the window closed, and the forecast for this week is rain and highs in the mid 50s. Every day. I have to say I’m ready for fall. It’s my favorite season; I just love being able to snuggle up with a comfy faux fur blanket (I call it The Pelt) with a hot cup of coffee and read for hours on a weekend. I’m ready for scarves, jackets, and warm comfort food.

However, we’re not there quite yet. The last of summer’s bounty is just in, and it includes a lot of zucchini, tomatoes, and—if you’ve read any of my last posts—lots of plums. I thought I’d give y’all a break from the plum talk and share this delicious recipe that will make all of your zucchini dreams come true. Every last one of them.

This recipe is basically a potato latke if you substituted zucchini for potato. Topped with a lemony, garlicky, sour creamy dallop, it tasted bright and clean and downright springy. Kind of like zucchini and squash casserole in fritter form, so that’s it’s light and fresh instead of heavy and nap-inducing.

Other than the apple and plum pie I made a few weeks ago (recipe to come soon), this is the best recipe I’ve made in awhile, so give it a try!

P.S. Did y’all notice that I’m not just pimentocheeseplease.wordpress.com anymore? That’s right, I’m all fancy and official-like with a new address—pimentocheeseplease.com.

Zucchini fritters
from Smitten Kitchen, of course; the recipe makes ten 2 1/2-inch fritters, but I ended up with 12 because I used more zucchini than it calls for. If you have more than two medium zucchini on hand, it’s easy to adjust the recipe to accommodate for it—just use a few more scallions, add another egg, and use a bit more flour, salt, and baking powder.

1 pound (2 medium) zucchini
1 tsp. salt
2 scallions, sliced thin (I kept mine a bit chunky because I like the texture they had in the fritters)
1 large egg, lightly beaten
pepper
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
olive oil or whatever oil you want to fry the little guys in

Delicious topping:
1 cup sour cream or plain, full-fat yogurt
1-2 Tbsp. lemon juice
1/4 tsp. lemon zest
a couple of pinches of salt
1 small minced or crushed clove of garlic

Trim the ends off of the zucchini and grate them on the large holes of a box grater or in the food processor (with the shredding blade). I went the food processor route and it was super easy and not bad clean-up wise.

Put the zucchini in a large bowl and stir in a teaspoon of salt; set it aside for 10 minutes.

Now is the fun/gross part: wringing the water out of the zucchini. There are a few methods, but the easiest one (to me, at least) is to wrap it up in a clean dishtowel and squeeze it over the sink.

Thanks to sis-in-law Sara for the Russian day-of-the-week dishtowels! This is Thursday (Четверг).

A couple of minutes—and lots of green water—later, dump the zucchini back in the bowl. Add a bit more salt (1/4 tsp. or so) because most of the salt you added beforehand got washed down the drain. Stir in the egg, scallions, and some pepper. Stir the flour and baking soda together in a small bowl and add it to the zucchini mixture.

Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Drop heaping spoonfuls of zucchini mixture into the pan (four at the most); lightly flatten them with the back of a spatula.

While they’re cooking (3ish minutes on each side), grab some paper towels and have them ready for the hot fritters to rest on. When the fritters are lightly browned on both sides, remove them from the pan and drain them on the paper towels. Repeat with the rest. To get the fritters extra crisp, preheat the oven to 200˚ (this step should be at the top of the instructions); after they drain for a couple of minutes on paper towels, transfer them to a baking sheet and keep them in the oven for 10 minutes or so.

For the topping, stir the sour cream, lemon juice, lemon zest, salt, and garlic together and taste for seasoning.

Top each fritter with a dallop and dig in. Seriously…these things are so delicious. I wish I’d known about this recipe a few months ago because I would have been making zucchini fritters all summer long. If you can still get good zucchini at the store or the produce stand, grab a few and make some fritters this week!

In other news…counting down the days until the family is reunited (since last Christmas!) at the end of the month at a friend’s wedding in Connecticut. It’ll be quite a weekend—wedding on Friday, Georgia/Florida party on Saturday, and then Brooklyn on Sunday to celebrate my brother’s 30th (!!!) birthday and see his and Sara’s new place. And Saturday is Oktoberfest in Leavenworth (Leavenworth = Washington state’s version of Helen, Ga.).

And finally…how ’bout them dawgs?! After a disappointing start we’re on a four-game winning streak that will hopefully extend at least until Oct. 28. Watching the games with the rest of the Dawg fans out here has been more fun this season than ever. It feels weird to say that I’ve met some good friends through the football watching parties, but I have! Football brings people together, and, well, the Southerners out here tend to find each other anyway and stick together.

I’ll be back next week with plum recipe #4 of 5!