Happy Christmas Eve!

Wow where has the te gone! It feels like it was just Thanksgiving yesterday! Now it's Christmas Eve! I'm happy to report I'm sitting by the fire in my grandparents house. Watching my grandmother bake cakes for Christmas. I will be heading into the kitchen soon to make Mac and cheese and other side dishes for r
Tomorrows meal.
I really love this time of year, spending time with family catching up with old friends! Oh and of course the food! All the wonderful food! This year I bakes literally hundreds of Christmas cookies! So many that gingerbread men are haunting my dreams!
I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas, full of family, friends and good food!

Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving Post on the way

It was a fun busy Thanksgiving weekend. I had a so much fun spending time with my friends and family. We had good food and good cocktails! I have spent the day recovering from all the cooking and celebrating. I plan to have a full Thanksgiving update out this week, I took lots of pictures of the food and I am working on the best way to organize all the content.

I am a little sad Thanksgiving is over but I am super excited that Christmas is around the corner. My Christmas tree is up and this weekend I am doing my annual Christmas cookie baking day! I'll have lots to talk about and eat in the coming weeks. Let the Holiday Cheer begin!

T'was the night before Thanksgiving

We are just hours away Thanksgiving, I made my shopping list and checked it twice. I have everything I need to make a feast. I spent my day focused on my mise en place. I chopped all my onions, celery and garlic. So tomorrow when I wake up all I have to do is assemble, with very little chopping and prep work.

I also made my mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, cranberry sauce and pies. I would have made the dressing too but I ran out of room in my refridgerator so I have to wait until the morning to do that. Most of my afternoon was spent playing refidgerator Tetris.  It was a struggle to fit in all the side dishes, a turkey and the booze for tomorrow. I managed to get it in all in now I am ready for a glass of wine and some shut eye before the big day.

I am wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving Eve, and Thankgiving! Enjoy the family, friends and food!

P.S. Sorry if this post is all over the place I am exhausted and struggling to keep my eyes open.

2 Days to go!

Thanksgiving will be here in two very short days! I spent my day at the grocery stores again. Tonight I made my corn bread for my dressing and prepared my herb salt rub for my Turkey. Tomorrow will be a busy cooking day for me. I plan to bake pies, make mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and cut up all my veggies. I am starting to get excited...

Thanksgiving week is here

Its here, Thanksgiving week. This week is all about planning and preparation. I have spent the last few days reading food magazine and watching every thanksgiving cooking special on TV. The one major take away I got from all of them is that planning is key.
I spent the day going through all my recipes and making one very long grocery list. Picking up my turkey and produce at the store. I've learned in past years the way to cut down on Thanksgiving day stress and melt downs (besides lots of wine) is to prep as many of my dishes as I can before hand. So that way on Thanksgiving morning all I really need to do is cook the turkey and the sides.
Prepping ahead of time is great if you have a small kitchen like me. I need as much free space as I can get. I also make a timeline for the day. So I know what's going in the oven when and how much time I am going to need to make sure everything is done at the same time.
Right now I am trying to decide if I should make my own pie crust or buy a crust from the store. I am a baking purest so I really want to make my own. On the other hand I have so much to do and I am making everything else from scratch, in an effort to save my sanity I may just buy a crust.
I a getting really excited and looking forward to spending some quality time in the kitchen cranking out good food.

Off to a good start

Today I made progress on my Thanksgiving planning. I ordered my Turkey, which by the way comes with its on confirmation e-mail and number that I have to present in order to pick it up. I finally finished my menu.
The menu was a struggle because I couldn't decide if I should go high-end gourmet or more basic traditional. What I love most about Thanksgiving is its all about the food. So its a day where doing too much is accepted and expected. Thanksgiving is also a day about tradition and familiar tastes and smells that  bring back great memories.
As I waded through hundreds of recipes and weighed different menu options. I decided to meet in the middle. I'll do traditional but with a few updated twist. So with that in mind I created what I think is a good Thanksgiving fest.
Oh and I will blog about it because next week's food challenge is Thanksgiving recipes. So I will take pictures and document the process. Here's what we'll be having on Turkey day.

Herb Salted Turkey
Shredded brussel sprouts cooked in bacon
Creamy rich mashed potatoes
Yam casserole topped with a pecan crumble
Green bean casserole (Wait for those of you who know me, you know how I loathe the dreaded green bean casserole. I have stated my contempt for this dish for years. I realize what I hate is that god awful cream of mushroom soup and fried onions monstrosity that ends up on most holiday tables. I happened to find a recipe that is from scratch and made with good Cheddar cheese does not use canned soup of any kind so I decided to give it a whirl!)
Parker house rolls
Corn bread stuffing
Bourbon Pecan Pie
Sweet Potato Pie
Chocolate cake (if I have time)

So I am well on my way, next items on the list. Make my shopping list, clean out the fridge so I have room for everything and get the house in order for guest. We are exactly 8 days away from the big meal so time to get  cracking!

Who was I kidding?

I am back from a very busy home. The wedding was beautiful and the shower was success! When I landed yesterday I was hit with the very real reality that Thanksgiving is next week! I knew it was coming but somehow I just felt like I had more time. Between planning a baby shower and traveling and doing a food challenge the time got away from me.
So this week I am going to be all about getting my Thanksgiving game plan in order. This year is going to be my biggest Thanksgiving yet. I will have seven adults and one baby over for dinner. So I need to get cracking.
There is a house to clean, a turkey to order, a menu to finalize and wine and beer to pair. I am excited, I love Thanksgiving because its a holiday that is all about the food. I cannot wait to have a really good meal and have fun with family and friends. This week my plan is to post about Thanksgiving prep and give some tips and tricks along the way that you can use to prepare for Thanksgiving.
My first order of business is ordering my Turkey then finalizing the menu. I'd love to hear whats on your menu. I love finding out what other people are making for their Thanksgiving meal.

Wish me luck!

Busy week

Its Tuesday actually its almost wednesday. I note this because Thursday I am flying home for my uncles wedding and to host a babyshower. The weekend is going to be a busy one forsure. In usual fashion the days leading up to the trip are just as busy.
I haven't been in the kitchen much, this week. I did make a killer pot of chile last night that was so good, I was mad when I got home tonight and found out Cory finished the leftovers. This is after I had eaten the chile for lunch!
The weather has cooled down drastically and a hot bowl of chile hits the spot. Another cold weather treat is a big mug of hot chocolate. I've been craving it non-stop for the last four days, andCory has been kind enough to make it for me. With preparing for a trip and satisfying my cold weather food cravings I haven't had time to focus on my around the world cooking this week. I thought I would beable to squeeze it in. It appears that I am running out of time.
So I'll have to resume next week when I return. I am really looking forward to spending some time with my family and friends,celebrating birthdays, weddings and babies. Who I am kidding I can't wait to get home and eat some awesome food!

Avgolemono

Avgolemono is Greek Egg-Lemon Chicken Soup. I've only had this soup once before at restaurant and wanted to give it try. If you've never had it, its smooth almost creamy chicken soup with a nice tang of lemon. Its a really nice dish to make on a chilly fall night or if your feeling under the weather.


To start I poured six cups of chicken broth into a pot.

The prep for this soup could not be any easier. I cut one small onion in halve, and peeled one carrot. That's it! That's all the prep work that I needed to do! This is my kind of soup! I also needed one bay leaf. Once my veggies were prepped I added them to pot of stock along with a teaspoon of salt.

Once the stock is simmering I add two boneless skinless chicken breast to the pot and let it simmer gently for thirty minutes.

After the thirty minutes are up I remove the chicken and strain the vegetables from the stock. I was lazy and didn't feel like busting out the strainer so I just used my tongs and pulled out the onion, carrot and bay leaf. Seriously the pieces are so big you really don't need to go through the hassle of straining. Once everything was out of the pot I brought the stock back up to a boil and added one cup of long grain.

The rice needs to cook for twenty minutes so while that was happening I juiced two lemons for a quarter cup of lemon juice and I shredded my chicken.

Once the rice is done you add back in the chicken and let cook for a five more minutes. During that time I need to prepare my eggs. This recipe calls for the eggs to be tempered. Tempering is when you slowly bring the eggs up to temperature with hot liquid before you pour them in the pot of hot soup. If you do not temper the eggs first and just put the eggs in the soup the result is scrambled egg soup.  
I find that you should start with room temperature eggs. I had to whisk the eggs until foamy.

Once the eggs are whisked I added the lemon juice. I poured through a strainer to get all the pulp and seeds out. Then I whisked the eggs and lemon juice together.

Now the fun and tricky part tempering the eggs. I took one cup of hot stock from the soup pot and slowly poured it into my egg mixture while whisking quickly to keep the eggs from cooking. I repeated this one more time with another cup of stock until my eggs were warm.

Now that my eggs are nice and warm a I can pour them into the soup. Its amazing hour the addition of eggs changed the soup. Instead of a standard brothy chicken and rice soup. I know had a smooth and creamy soup without the addition of heavy cream. It reminded me almost of risotto. That lemon juice gives it an ice tangy bite that cuts through the richness.

To finish the soup I just added some chopped parseley and its ready to serve! This soup is really good and I can't wait to enjoy it on nice cold night. The day I made the soup it was 80 degrees so I didn't really need the warm cozy effect. Anyway hot or cold outside this soup is really good and makes a great lunch the next day!

This recipe is a keeper, I think it maybe my new go to chicken soup!

I didn't forget

I know its Thursday and I still haven't announced the country I am cooking for this week. Don't worry I haven't forgotten. In fact I made a dish last night that turned out really good and I am excited to post about it. It involves tempering eggs so that brings up the cool factor. 

The country that I am featuring this week is Greece! I love Greek food and I've been known to eat my body weight in hummus so I am going to be eating well this week! Tomorrow there will be a full post on the dish I made. I am not going to say what it is you'll have to come back tomorrow to find out.

Happy Friday Eve!

Check it out!

Its no secret that I LOVE cookbooks! Every time I go the bookstore I find at least five new cookbooks that I want/need. I have learned over the years that some cookbooks I will use and will go back to time and time again and some I will look at the pretty pictures and read the descriptions, but never really cook out of.

I also learned that collecting cookbooks that I don't use is an expensive habit and they take up a lot of space in a small apartment. One day a couple year ago I discovered something amazing. Cory wanted to go the library in our neighborhood. I am think snooze! Who goes the library anymore? They can't have any good or current books?  Oh how wrong I was!

That day I discovered that my local library has cookbooks! Not just old outdated cookbooks, but newly released cookbooks by really great cooks and chefs. I was so excited because now I could check out any cookbook I had my eye on. Take it home find the recipes I wanted make a copy and take the book back.

It was the answer to all my cookbook prayers. I didn't have to spend a small fortune amassing a great collection of recipes. If I got the book and didn't like or the recipes didn't work I could take back and not have it taking up valuable shelf space. The other wonderful thing about checking out cookbooks from the library is that most people don't put cookbooks on hold which means I can keep renewing it until my hearts content.

Confession, I kept one cookbook on chocolate for six months! That's ok, because as long as I renewed it I could have it as long as I wanted! Now before I buy a cookbook, I try to check it out at the library first. I see if I like it, if the recipes are good, and If I like it I'll go buy it.

I see the library as a way to test drive a cookbook before you buy it. If your a cookbook junky like me. The library is a great place to get your fix!

Happy Halloween

Is it me or does it feel like its been Halloween for a week now? I guess its because people have been celebrating and dressing up since last Friday. I've said it before Halloween is not my jam. I will say every year I am a little disappointed to not get any trick or treaters in our complex. 

Trick or Treating is the one aspect of Halloween I really enjoy. Plus if we don't have trick or treaters, that means we don't have any reason to buy a massive bag of candy. Which is a bummer, because it just isn't Halloween without a fun size snickers or a peanut butter cup. Normally I could careless about candy, but today I just one a couple of my favorite childhood treats!

I am in luck I did spy one last pumpkin cupcake with spicy butter cream in my fridge so that will have to be my Halloween treat for the day. After today its full steam ahead to Thanksgiving! I can hardly wait to breakout the Christmas music!

Good food and wine at Twisted Vine!

Tonight I had the honor and the privilege to attend the soft opening of Twisted Vine Bistro and Wine Bar. One of my dear friends Mia Saling is the Executive Chef at Twisted Vine, and I could not wait to try the menu.

Since it is a wine bar, the first order of business was to select a glass of wine. I was going to go with a glass of processco to start, then I was advised to try a glass of Frista, it is a sparkling wine from Chile that is infused with strawberries.

I really enjoyed this wine it was light fruity, and I could really taste the strawberries. It was a perfect way to kick off the meal. We started with the small plates. We ordered the yellow tail tostadas and the Molten  Brie Crisps.

The Yellow tail tostadas had a nice crunch, which I love because I am a texture junky. In contrast the guacamole and the cream sauce gave the tostadas a nice creamy balance, that paired beautifully with the perfectly cooked yellowtail.
The Molten Brie Crisp has a light crispy outer shell, that hides a melty gooey brie. On top there are port wine cherries and candied pistaschios which add a touch of sweetness to cheese. That sweetness actually helps cut the richness of the cheese.
Up next I had the tomato fennel soup. This soup is rich and creamy so silky smooth, I could not believe there is no heavy cream in this soup. That's right somehow Mia was able to create this amazingly rich and satisfying soup without the help of heavy cream. So if you want something that taste sinful but isn't get this soup!

We didn't stop at the soup, oh no! There were too many other tempting options on the menu we had to keep going! That's exactly what we did, we ordered the Sopressata, Prociutto and Fresh Mozzarella Flat bread.

This is a great flatbread for meat lovers. When this arrived at my table I was really drawn in by the beautiful colors of this flatbread. Don't let all that arugula fool you, there is some serious meat under there. I really enjoyed the freshness of the pesto against the prociutto. This is a yummy snack to share with some friends over a bottle wine or to split for dinner.

Twisted Vine isn't just savory, they have a nice sweet side too. For dessert we ordered the Chocolate cake with vanilla bean gelato. This cake is a chocolate lovers dream. I loved the vanilla bean gelato which was nice and cool against the warm chocolate cake. It was the perfect end to the meal.

It was such a lovely night, I am so very proud of Mia, she has put her heart and soul into this menu and the flavor of the food reflects her passion for cooking.

Congratulations Chef Mia! You ROCKED it!

**Life lesson: Seeing Mia living her dream and seeing the results of all her hard work and dedication was truly an inspiration for me. Watching her reminded me, to keep doing what I love and to never give up on my dreams! Thank you Mia for showing me that any thing is possible with hard work and love for what you do!

Happy Halloweekend!

I'll admit I don't get excited over Halloween. I don't care about dressing up, I hate scary movies and haunted houses. The thing I love about this time of year, is it kicks off the holiday season. I know that we are less than a month away from one of my favorite holidays, Thanksgiving. 

I've already started to think of menu ideas and I can't wait to have my family in town to enjoy all the food and festivities. So basically Halloween is the gateway to the funniest two months of the year! Since this is the Saturday before Halloween we are going to a party tonight.

Its a cool Halloween party because its based on food and not so much Halloween. So I am more that excited for that. I wish everyone a fun and safe Halloweekend!

Boo!

Classic Mexican Coctail, Not a Margarita!

When most people think of Mexican cocktails the Margarita is the first thing that comes to mind. Margartia's and tequila sunrises. While I love a good Margarita, I wanted to explore other Mexican cocktails.

While researching recipes for this week I came upon a drink called a Chico. Chicos were a popular cocktail during the World War II era. As time went on people stopped ordering Chicos in favor of the ever popular Margarita.

As I read the recipe for Chicos, I thought man this sounds really, really good. I think if more people tried Chico's they would agree. Maybe we could bring Chicos back! Since the weekend is here, why not give this cocktail a try.

Chicos:
1 shot sliver tequila
1 shot blackberry liqueur
Fresh lemon juice
Simple syrup
soda water
Fill a tall glass half full of ice. Add the tequila and the blackberry liqueur. Fill a shot glass with one-third lemon juice and two-thirds simple syrup; pour over ice. Top off the glass with soda water. Stir.

Cheers! TGIF!

The Truth about Lard

This is lard:

This may not be the lard your use to seeing. The lard most of us see is the kind we get in the store. Its pure white and usually hard until you heat it up. That lard is full of stabilizers and trans fats to make sure it doesn't spoil and can be stored at room temperature without melting. That is the lard that has given lard a bad rap for being un-healthy and causing heart disease and obesity.

The lard I used was fresh lard, and it will go bad in one week if not used. It will get soft and gooey at room temperature and it isn't as bad for you as a you might think. Lard has half the cholesterol of butter and one third of the saturated fat.

It makes amazing cookies, pie crust and tortillas! So next time a recipe calls for lard. Don't flinch with disgust and dread. Don't let images of EKG's and cardiac episodes fill your brain. Instead consider as you would any other fat a recipe calls for. Be sure to get the fresh lard from your local butcher or meat market.

Stay the hell away from that Snow Cap or Monteca crap on the store shelves!

My first Tortilla making attempt

I've eaten hundreds if not thousands of tortillas in my in my lifetime. Yet, I've never tried to make them myself. I've watched other people make them but never really thought of trying it myself. That all changed this week! Last night I made my first ever from scratch flour tortillas.

To my surprise Tortillas are really easy to make and take very few ingredients. To start I put four cups of flour into my mixing bowl.

The next ingredient is the most important ingredient and that is lard. Yep that's right good old fashioned fresh lard. When I say fresh I do not mean the stuff on the grocery store shelves that come tubs or logs. I mean freshly render pig fat from the butcher. Lucky for me I live near a Mexican meat market and they had plenty of fresh lard on hand for me to buy.

The lard gives the tortillas that soft smooth texture. Its the perfect fat for tortillas. After the lard I just added a dash of salt and a cup of water. Once all the ingredients were in the mixer I turned it on and let it mix for about five minutes.

I let the dough mix until it started to pull away from the bowl and come together in a ball. Now I covered the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rest for one hour.

Once the dough has rested I put it on a well floured surface. Then devided the dough into eight balls.

Here's were it started to get tricky. Now I had to roll the dough out into a circle. I found rolling out dough into a nice circle is harder than it seemed. So my tortillas came out a little irregular shapped.

Now its time to cook the tortillas. I heated my cast iron skillet and cooked the tortillas until they started to bubble then flipped it over and continue to cook on the other side. 

Now nothing left to do but eat! I love fresh hot tortillas especially with butter and honey. That is good eating! 

Even though they were perfectly round they were perfectly good! Now I just need some red chile and beans to eat with them. 

Have I mentioned I love Mexican food week?

Red chile chicken enchiladas

For as much Mexican food as I eat and have eaten in my life. I realized there are a lot of dishes I've never made at home. I've either had them at a restaurant or eaten them in someone else's home. So when I was looking through recipes for this week I realized that some of my favorite dishes I've never made for myself.

One of those dishes being rolled enchiladas. I've made green chile chicken enchiladas before, but those are more like a casserole that are layered and stacked. I've never made the single layered rolled enchiladas before and whats even crazier is I've never made red chile enchiladas. I figured it was high time I did.

To start the enchiladas I had to prepare the filling. In this case it was chicken. To make the chicken I stewed it in water with onions, garlic, bayleaf, pepper corns and cumin. Basically I made chicken broth. I used two chicken breast with the bone in and skin on. 

I let this cook for 40 minutes. While that was cooking I prepped my other ingredients which consisted of grating cheese and chopping one whole yellow onion.

Now the fun part frying the corn tortillas. I have I mentioned that I don't like to fry things? I really, really, do not enjoy having to fry anything. I mostly don't like frying because working with hot grease scares me and I hate it when the grease splatters and burns me. Anyway I had to get over it and fry my corn tortillas.

The key to frying corn tortillas for enchiladas is for the grease to be HOT! If the tortillas doesn't bubble and sizzle the second you put it in the skillet the grease isn't hot enough. I only fry them about 10-15 seconds on each side. I don't want them hard or crispy like chips. Just want them soft enough to roll.

By this time my chicken is cooked and ready to be shredded. 

I didn't forget that lovely chicken broth the chicken came out of. I strained it and put in the fridge to use in something else this week. Chicken's done, tortillas are fried, cheese and onions are ready so its time to make enchiladas. But wait, what about the enchilada sauce? Here is were most people go wrong with me is on their choice of enchilada sauce. 

I am from New Mexico and the only thing that ever goes on our enchiladas is either red or green chile. I mean it when I say this makes a huge difference in the taste of your enchiladas. Most store brand "enchilada sauces" are tomato based and too sweet, yuck! I love a nice simple red chile puree sauce. Which thanks to my mom I happened to have a fresh jar straight from New Mexico.

Red chile sauce can be made at home and is awesome. However its hard to find the New Mexico chiles in my hood so I used the jar sauce from one of my favorite New Mexico restaurants. Now time to assemble the enchiladas which is really easy.

To assemble all I did is take one corn tortilla put some fresh onion and shredded chicken in it then roll it up. Sorry I didn't get a picture of the chicken going in the tortilla but again I was hungry and in a hurry. I kept repeating this method until I had a dish full of enchilada rolls.

Next I poured my red chile sauce over the top.

Then added more fresh onions ( I really, like a lot of onion on my enchiladas).

Then I covered the whole thing is sharp Cheddar cheese.

I put these in the oven for 30 minutes to melt the cheese and heat through. Next time I will do it for 20 minutes 30 was a little too long. 

The final product looks like this!

Look at that warm bubbly goodness. It just brings a smile to my face and warms my heart whenever I look at it. Dinner was really good! The best part is there were left overs so I got to eat them again today! Life is good!

So far Mexican week is getting off to a great start!