Our very orchestrated Sunday supper. If you hadn’t noticed, I really love to cook, but I prefer a big bang for my buck in the kitchen. I don’t generally want to painstakingly create meals that will be gone in minutes.
That being said, I also like a little adventure and own cookbooks galore. Some of the recipes are of the painstaking, slow Sunday Supper ilk. I was feeling a strong pull toward my Teutonic roots and have a glorious German cookbook by Alfons Schuhbeck in need of a little mileage. So, I stuffed chicken breasts with ham and cheddar and topped them with a butter laden sherry wine sauce. The potato salad came from the same book, but it is sadly missing radishes because two grocers were out of them and dried tarragon! What the?
The bright colored salad is the closest I could get without the aforementioned tarragon to a carrot salad we rather enjoy at Uwe’s, one of our favorite local places.
And the cake, oh good grief! It is Christina Tosi’s Apple Pie Cake from Milk. Talk about laborious. So very many steps! Such deliciousness, though. My stars.
Our fab shed dolled up with icicles and wild bee house!
Oh, the food I’ve made, as of late. Thank goodness we have a dog to walk and a daily workout routine, or we’d be in serious trouble. We’re currently jamming on Jericho’s Morning Meltdown 100. I’m feeling stronger and stronger.
Back to the eats! I am a massive fan of the library, and especially the cookbook section, checking out some little lovely nearly every visit. I don’t always cook from them, often just wanting to ogle food photos and take an armchair vacation to some beautiful locale.
The Hummus Bling Bling is from Eat. Cook. L.A., seriously the best hummus I’ve ever had. For a loooong time, I couldn’t eat hummus, or any dried bean concoction for that matter, suffering massive intestinal distress. But then I read The Plant Paradox and learned that pressure cooking (for at least 7.5 minutes) destroys the lectins that made me wanna die. So I can eat hummus again, and the Anasazi beans I bought in New Mexico (pictured below). Celebrate good times….
My first time making mole. Boy howdy, what was I waiting for?! It is the stuff of magic. We slathered it on chicken and whisked giant dollops into hot chocolate. Oh, yeah!!
Homemade chile con queso, queso, queso. How do I love thee. With chicharones and Siete (ocho, nueve, diez…) cassava chips, for when I’m not feeling corny.
Spoon bread with a mushroom, sour cream, and parmesan concoction. Also from Eat. Cook. L.A. Mighty-mighty.
I’ve dabbled in bread baking for a long time, mostly turning out the no-knead or some boule variety. They were consistently delicious, but I frequently tired of the massive air bubble directly where I wanted to make a sandwich. So I tried the Italian from America’s Test Kitchen Bread Illistrated. Wow! It’s everything I want in something sandwich and toast-able. Yes, ma’am.
The Italian bread calls for 8 oz of beer. Since I am not much of a beer drinker, and especially not at eight in the a.m., I decided to use the remaining 4 oz to make beer bread as an accompaniment to the Brazilian Coconut Shrimp Soup I was planning for lunch. Delicious!
Here’s the recipe for the soup. So easy! Double or triple, if you like.
1 14 oz can coconut milk
1/2 pound cleaned shrimp
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 jalapeno, diced
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
salt, to taste
Put everything in a saucepan and cook until the shrimp is cooked through, basically to your liking. Take a little taste, add salt until it’s right. Seriously, that’s it. Add a cilantro garnish, if you have it, but it’s lovely without it.
Happy 2020! I hope your holiday celebrations were as lively and enjoyable as ours. This was our not-so-fancy Christmas dinner: pan roasted chicken thighs, roasted asparagus, sliced cranberry sauce, stuffing and gravy. No pie and lots of movie watching and puzzle making! It was the best day.
Fear not about the pie, however, as we spent Boxing Day with the local cousins (yay!), and our contribution was a ham, homemade fudge (walnut & cranberry pecan), homemade maple cream liqueur (scroll down for the recipe), spiced wine, and a bourbon pecan pie. You know, all the essential food groups.
It was a grand day of eating, chatting, D & D (our party continues to slay), more eating, a little drinking, and watching a couple episodes of The Mandalorian. We are actually in the know on a current event! Ha. That Baby Yoda is adorable.
We were also up late enough with weather fine enough for a midnight stroll (Juniper was ecstatic to be out so late, little cutie) to witness the annual AdAmAn display on top of Pike’s Peak. It only took three years! If you don’t know about it, it’s a group of climbers who endure a freezing hike the two days prior to New Year’s and set off fireworks at the stroke of midnight.
Greg and I are not generally keen on fireworks in a been-there-done-that kind of way, but this display really is something, illuminating the peak in spectacular fashion! Here’s looking forward to next year…
And to yesterday’s lunch – a zucchini, apple, dried cranberry, and feta salad, with a little apple cider vinegar reduction dressing. The tops! All the basic holiday food groups were a bit excessive, so we are doing a much needed reset. The body brims with gratitude.
And if you are any kind of maple fan, you will be grateful for this recipe! Our friend Alex is Canadian and gave us this delicious Maple Cream Liqueur from Cabot Trail. We absolutely love it, but it isn’t available in the United States. Sadly, there isn’t anything quite like it here, and as I scoured the internet for recipes, came up blank. So I did a bit of tinkering and ended up making a version I actually feel is superior. It is SO easy, too.
Maple Cream Liqueur
1 cup pure maple syrup
1 cup gold rum (I like Bacardi), whiskey would also be wonderful
1 cup heavy whipping cream
2 teaspoons cocoa powder
Mix maple, your booze of choice, and the cocoa powder in a mixer or with a hand blender until smooth. I tried to do this with a whisk, but the cocoa powder is super finicky and kept floating on top. Add the whipping cream and mix on low just until combined. You don’t want to make it frothy. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator, and serve over ice or in your favorite cup of coffee. I have no idea how long this keeps because it’s too good to not want to drink. Enjoy!!
Back when we lived in Portland, on some random channel I could never remember, I would watch Burns & Allen. I do remember that it was always in the hush of late evening, and that Gracie Allen was simply THE BEST of the whole darn show. She dazzled! This past weekend, I had the pleasure of seeing a rare and wonderful incarnation of her. Greg and I, after nearly four years in Colorado Springs, finally made it to the Millibo Art Theater, to see Yule Be Naughty. It’s a fun mix of silliness, cabaret, amazing aerials and acrobatics (seriously, wow!), and some pretty stellar Gracie Allen style story telling. If you are local and in need of an adult activity this weekend, go and be glad!
Before that, on Thursday, to be exact (thank you flexible work at home hours!!), we headed to our local castle, Glen Eyrie, for their Yule Tea. Greg made friends with a knight before the pair of us enjoyed every bite and sip.
The Big Horned Sheep was part of a herd grazing and relaxing on the lawn. Pretty cool!
dreaming of snow….
I am one of those people for whom it isn’t a complete holiday season without certain foods or events. On the event side, we must listen to Alice’s Restaurant, preferably on Thanksgiving, but, as was the case this year, the following day, despite talking about it and even queuing it up prior to dinner. The tamales, apparently, were just too exciting. We also must read Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory, laughing and crying and delightedly sighing. That we did on Sunday, and loved it as much as ever.
As for the food and beverage side of the equation, I must have, in no particular order: stuffing with cranberries and celery, perfectly sliced canned cranberry sauce, egg nog (preferably with brandy, but whisky or rum will do), biscochitos (only my recipe will do – snob), fudge, and peppermint ice cream.
This summer, I learned the most amazing and delicious basic ice cream recipe. 8 oz heavy cream whipped to soft peaks & one can sweetened condensed milk – mixed gently together & frozen in a loaf pan. I made it with the addition of vanilla, a few tablespoons of my homemade peach & strawberry jam, chunky peanut butter & their delightful cups. Each was shockingly good considering the ease with which they were made. Seriously top shelf. And no churning or worrying! So, when it came time for the annual stroll down peppermint lane, the choice to make it myself was obvious. I added a half teaspoon of vanilla and five hammered to bits starlight mints. Divine.
Another lovely snow. It came in the smallest possible flakes, that fell and fell and fell. Champagne powder and Juniper’s dream come true!
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, as the song goes. I collected fallen limbs out walking, bought a few decorations (the cute trees are from Target!), and pulled out favorite treasures, so the house is nicely decked out and smelling lovely!
I also did a massive day of holiday sweet baking and making, with Biscochitos, Mexican Wedding Cookies, peanut butter yo-yos (which Daddy calls little burgers), pinon & rosemary caramels, amaretto & walnut fudges, cream cheese mints, and peppermint marshmallows. We’ve eaten and quite enjoyed a lot, but thankfully shared the majority to avoid sugar comas.
This past weekend, we enjoyed a little road trip to Denver to spend time with some of our favorite people. It was quite the whirlwind of tasty food, killer cocktails (Bananas & Bourbon!), games, and lovely company. As is often the norm at this time of year, it was frigid and sunny, with the bustle of humanity as jolly as the skies. We also had an easy drive both ways, which is always nice.
Just because they are so darn cute. Hope you are enjoying the holiday season!
