2009 Top 10 list

2009 was actually a great year, not least of which is that I started my little business, FoodMuse. I LOVE LOVE doing it. I love the menu planning, I love the cooking, but most of all I LOVE my clients. (I do not love the paperwork or creating invoices, that part is really uninspiring.)

I feel so lucky every day that I get to do this - I still pinch myself when I start in the morning and realize that instead of a dreary office with 300+ emails in my Inbox to scan, I get to make a sponge to use for a yeast bread later in the day. My "To Do" list contains items that I will actually check off at the end of the day - and the results will be tenable and delicious.

So in no particular order, here are the things that I most enjoyed cooking this past year:

1. OK, really, the Rosh Hashanah brisket was magical. Ditto on the pillowy, golden challah bread that went along with it. (The matzoh ball soup not so much - the matzoh balls broke apart. It could have been better.)
2. The big vegetarian pot pie with root vegetables. Honestly, I am really scared that I will never be able to produce one that good again.
3. The Bolognese sauce with rigatoni. That sauce was a revelation in flavor. I did not know that anything could really become that dense, that layered, that complex, given a few ingredients and a lot of time to simmer.
4. Hmmmm. There's definitely a tie brewing between the Chicken Tagine and the Glazed Pork Tenderloin... No, I take it back. The Chicken Tagine. Definitely. That dish was also a revelation - I just didn't know that green olives and dusky apricots could marry so well with chicken and Moroccan spices.
5. If I was being reasonable this spot would now go to the Pork, but I will continue to be capricious, so instead it's the Butternut Squash Risotto. Lovely, creamy, almost unctuous --- the rice and parmesan perfectly balanced the sweetness of the roast squash and tang of fresh sage.
6. The Creamy Potato Soup I made two days ago. (OK, if I were going to be strict about the rules, I would have to save this for next year, but gosh darn it, it was just TOO GOOD.) It's amazing that such a paucity of ingredients should result in something so magical.
7. Giant molasses ginger cookies.
8. Cheesecake brownies.
9. Yeast Rolls.
10. Apple Butter - a total pain to make, but worth it for the results.

I hope that you too enjoyed 2009 and I wish you a wonderful year to come!