Author: ajeanneinthekitchen

It is now officially 2020.  Not only was last night the last night of 2019, but it was also the last night of a decade.  Let’s hope we can learn from our past mistakes and pave the way for a better future in this new decade.  Out with the old, and in with the new!  Start the new decade with a clean slate.

HAPPY NEW YEAR Everyone!  Can you believe 2019 is over and done with?  At the stroke of midnight it will not only be a new year, but a new decade.  Our friends on the other side of the world have already rung in the New Year, and have already welcomed in the year 2020.

The celebration of the new year is one of the world’s oldest celebrations and is celebrated around the world, in every country and culture that measures the passages of time by a yearly calendar.  Celebrating the incoming, new year is a celebration that has been going on since 4000 BC.  It is believed to have started with the Ancient Babylonians, only then it was celebrated in March, at the beginning of the Spring season and the vernal equinox, rather than on January 1.  The Ancient Babylonians celebrated the new year for 12 days as a series of religious festivities for Akitu.  This was a time of new beginnings.  New kings were often crowned or renewed loyalty to the reigning kings were reaffirmed.  Promises were made to the gods to repay debts and to bring back things that were borrowed.  If one kept their promises, the gods bestowed their favors to the people.  If, however, those promises were not kept, the people were punished by the gods.  It is believed these are the beginnings of New Year’s resolutions too.

The New Year’s celebration on January 1st was started by Pope Gregory XIII, in 1582, with the invention of the Gregorian calendar.  The name “January” came from the Roman god Janus.  Janus was believed to have had 2 faces, one at his front and one at his back.   These faces were also known as “doors”, which signified openings or new beginnings.

For the early Christians and the Evangelical Christians, New Year’s Eve was a time of reflection and a time for a renewed faith.  It became a time to reflect on one’s mistakes and to resolve to make things better in the new year ahead.  For these people, New Year’s Eve was, and still is, known as “watch night services”.

In many parts of the world, and even in many parts of the United States, it is believed that whatever one eats or does on the 1st day of the New Year will be shown in their lives for the rest of the year.  There are many cultural traditions around the world that people engage in, with the hopes of prosperity and good health for the upcoming year.  For instance, in the South, black eyed peas are eaten on New Year’s Day to bring good fortune and good luck.  New Year’s Good Luck with Black-Eyed Peas and Ham Soup

This year, we are celebrating the New Year in a quiet fashion, with our friends Priscilla and Jonathon.  The days of partying all night are long gone.  I much prefer the quiet, more subdued celebrations these days.  The days where I can stay in my pajamas and celebrate with all my 4-legged fur babies are the best.  🙂

Whether you choose to celebrate with champagne and fireworks or if you choose to celebrate at home with family and friends, enjoy your festivities, be safe and Happy New Year.

Apparently, or should I say “appearantly”, I love pear salads at Christmas.  This is the second year in a row where I have made similar pear salads for Christmas.  Pear and Pecan Salad with a Ginger Dressing.  But I am not alone in cooking with pears during the holidays.  Pears have been a part of holiday traditions since the 1800’s.  Maybe one of the reasons pears are so popular around the holidays is because they are a hearty fruit that has a long shelf-life, especially in cooler climates.  Or perhaps because of their versatility.  Or could it be just because they taste so darned good?  Who knows, but pears and Christmas just seem to go together.

Pears are some of the world’s oldest cultivated fruits.  They have been around since about 5000 B.C.  They were a highly sought after and valuable commodity along the ancient trading routes due to their hardiness, versatility and long shelf-life.  There are many different varieties of pears, and they are grown all over the world, in temperate climates.  The Greek poet laureate Homer called pears “the gift of the Gods”.  I think he was on to something.

Pear and Green Bean Salad with Champagne Vinaigrette

4-5 cups fresh baby spinach, stems removed

2 pears, peeled and sliced thin

1 cup green beans, blanched

1/2 cup red pepper, diced fine

1 shallot, sliced thin

1 1/2 cups candied pecans

3-4 oz crumbled goat cheese

champagne vinaigrette

Arrange all the ingredients over the bed of spinach and top with the vinaigrette right before serving.

Candied Pecans

4 oz butter

3-4 TBSP brown sugar

2 tsp honey

1 1/2 -2 cups pecans

optional – cinnamon and/or cayenne pepper

Melt the butter, brown sugar and honey together in a hot skillet.  When the sugar is completely melted, add the pecans and completely coat them in the mixture.  Cook for about 2-3 minutes, and spread them out on a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Let them cool completely, then break them apart and chop.  I used my cinnamon honey that was part of my Christmas honey package from Blue Sage Honey Company.  A Box of Honey

Champagne Vinaigrette

1 TBSP Dijon mustard

1 TBSP garlic

1 tsp fresh chives, sliced/chopped very thin

1/4 cup champagne vinegar

1/3-1/2 cup olive oil

black pepper to taste

1-2 tsp honey – I used lavender honey

Whisk all the ingredients together and set aside.  Pour over the salad right before serving so nothing gets drenched or wilted.  Once again, I used some of my honey that I received for Christmas from Blue Sage Honey Company.  This time, I used some of the lavender honey.

This salad can be made with or without the goat cheese.  I am not a big cheese person at all, so I only put the cheese in the middle for all those who are cheese eaters.  We all enjoyed the salad, and there was none left over; always a good sign.

We’re back from Hays.  It was just a quick trip to celebrate the Billinger Christmas with Larry’s family.  The Billinger Christmas  We had a lot of rain and snow going and high winds coming back, but we are back home now, and there were no problems at all.  We had a bit of a scare though this morning, because it was reported that 1-70 was closed at the Kansas/Colorado border, but that was just a false alarm.  We made it back home safe and sound.

There were about 30 of us who gathered to celebrate, and that wasn’t even all of his brothers and sisters either.  Larry is the youngest of 9.  The table was covered with food, and we all brought out gifts to be exchanged in the gift exchange.   I did NOT do any of the cooking this time around.  Strange, I know, but every now and then it does happen.  It was good to visit with Larry’s family and to catch up with everyone, but the highlight of the trip was most definitely the puppies.  Larry’s sister’s dog just had puppies, and her husband brought “a box of puppies” to the party after the food and festivities.  Puppies always make us smile.  Everyone had a ton of fun playing with the puppies.  These puppies definitely brought and shared some puppy love.

Puppies are always a big hit and we love all dogs.  These are Dobermans.  They are about 5 weeks old.  There were 9 in the litter, but we only got to play with 4 this time.

Larry made a new friend.

Brooklyn has a a Christmas puppy.

Cousins playing with the puppies.

There were 2 kitties that also had to make their presence known and get in on some of the loving too.  This is Winston popping in to say hi.

Winston and Sue getting some treats.

As much as we were loving these puppies, we left them all in Kansas.  We did not bring any of them home with us this time.  Tempting though it was, we were good, and they all stayed in Kansas.  Although, on other occasions we have been known to bring back a rabbit, Fluffy, and our two current kitties, Otis and Nicodemus, from Kansas.  So it is not unheard of for us to bring back more fur babies, but we were good this time around.

The Kitchen will be closed for a short while.  We are off to Hays, KS to celebrate the Holidays with Larry’s family, the Billingers.  We will only be gone for a couple of days, and even though there will be a ton of food, as there always is, I will not be doing the cooking, or at least I will not be doing much of the cooking.

We are big bacon fans here.  If it has bacon, it is almost a guarantee that we are going to like it.  Potatoes are another staple in our house.  So combining bacon with potatoes …. YUM!  This winning combination is a different twist to an old favorite, loaded potato skins.  Bacon wrapped potatoes with queso blanco sauce was one of the dishes I decided upon for our Christmas Eve dinner.   Christmas Eve Celebrations  They were a big hit.  As you can see, it is a simple dish with just a few basic ingredients that most people have on hand all the time.  Often times, simple is best.

Bacon Wrapped Potatoes with Queso Blanco Sauce

1-2 lb red potatoes, washed and cut into wedges

1 lb bacon – I used pepper bacon

salt & pepper to taste

olive oil

1 jalapeno, diced fine

1 shallot or 1/3 red onion, diced fine

1 TBSP garlic

1/2 cup milk

4 slices jalapeno jack cheese

1 jar queso blanco dipping sauce

1/4 diced tomatoes

1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped fine

Preheat the oven to 425* F,

Add salt & pepper to the potato wedges.  Cut the bacon in 1/2 and wrap a piece of bacon around the potato wedges.  Hold the bacon in place with toothpicks.  Drizzle a little olive oil over the wedges and roast for about 40-45 minutes, or until the bacon is crisp and the potato wedges are tender.

While the potatoes are cooking make the sauce.  Saute the shallots, garlic and jalapenos together in olive oil for about 2 minutes or until the onions are translucent.

Add the queso blanco sauce, the milk and the jalapeno jack cheese then mix everything together well.  Cook until the sauce is creamy and the cheese is all melted.  Then add the tomatoes and the cilantro and combine well.  Adjust the seasoning if needed.  Your sauce is now ready to serve.  Serve it warm or hot.

Serve the potato wedges and the queso blanco sauce hot.  I guarantee these will be a party favorite and will disappear almost as soon as you get them out of the oven.  I barely had time to plate them up before they started disappearing.  And there are plenty of things you can use the left over sauce for too, assuming you have any left over.  I have already used it for a couple of things.  Once was in our Christmas morning omelettes.  Christmas Day  You will just have to wait to find out what else I did with it.  🙂

Merry Christmas Everyone.  I hope you are all enjoying your holidays.  Our big Holiday celebration was last night.  Christmas Eve Celebrations  We have had a VERY lazy day today.  We stayed in bed, watched TV and are just taking easy.   Since we do not have any kids, Christmas morning is more about taking it easy and relaxing than it is about presents.  We don’t really exchange any big gifts with each other.  We prefer making memories and sharing experiences than getting “things”.   We have found the most important gift to each other is the gift of time.  We have a few presents we open, but more so than not, those are shared adventures than actual things.  One of our “presents” to ourselves is to get NITROX certified for scuba diving.  We’ve been talking about it for quite some time and just haven’t done it yet.  So now is the time.  This will come in very handy since we already have 2 major dive trips planned for 2020; one to Cab San Lucas, Mexico,  and the other to the GBR in Australia.  After opening our “prezzies”, we made omelettes out of some last night’s leftovers.  This was the perfect way for us to “celebrate” our day.

We had the leftover bacon wrapped potatoes and leftover ham, so we made ham, spinach and mushroom omelettes.

We even had a little Christmas visitor stop by to wish us a Merry Christmas.

However you spend your day, make it merry and bright.  Celebrate all the good things in life.  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!!  It’s Christmas Eve.  Soon it will be Christmas Day!

We had a small but festive and fun celebration with our friends Priscilla and Jonathon and their daughters, and our friend Laura and her family.  Larry was busy cleaning all day and I was busy cooking all day.  We were getting everything ready for the festivities to come later in the evening.  I knew I was cooking the roast and the ham; it was just other stuff I wasn’t sure about.  What Do I Make for Christmas Dinner? But all that too came together, and we all ate way too much.  We all enjoyed everything and all had a great time.  I finally decided on a pear and green bean salad over spinach with a champagne vinaigrette and bacon wrapped potatoes with a queso blanco sauce, and then just some simple nibblies as well.

The table is all set.  Let the festivities begin.

The roast is ready to carve.

Larry is putting the glaze over the ham.

The bacon wrapped potatoes with queso blanco sauce are in place.

The salad is prepared.

And the guests arrive.  Priscilla and I enjoying a glass of bubbly to ring in the Holiday cheer.

Priscilla brought some fabulous sweet potato gnocchis made with sage butter, dessert and rolls.  Laura made a delicious zucchini casserole.  Both complimented the meats just perfectly.

After dinner, we pulled some Christmas crackers and let the games begin.  We all gathered ’round the Christmas tree (the smaller one) and played Apples to Apples until it was time to go home and go to bed, and wait to see the surprises left by good ole’ Saint Nick.

Merry Christmas Everyone.

OK!  I have the Christmas cookbooks.  Now, what do I make for Christmas dinner?  We are hosting dinner on Christmas Eve for our friends Jonathon and Priscilla, their kids, and our friend Laura, and possibly her kids too.  Priscilla, Laura and I all love to cook, so we decided to make it easy on ourselves and do it as a potluck.  I know I am making the roast, but what else am I going to make?  HMMMMMM.  I will have to go through my Christmas library and find the perfect things.  I had better get busy and figure it out pretty quickly.  After all Christmas Eve is TOMORROW night.

Merry Christmas, Happy Channukah and … all that jazz.  Enjoy your holidays, whichever holidays you celebrate.

‘Tis that time of year when we coaches and teachers get all kinds of fabulous gifts from our students.  My swimmers have been giving me some wonderful gifts.  The theme this year seems to be caffeine, chocolate and chlorine.  They seem to know what coaches live on.  We need all three of these things to keep us going.  I got some really cool coffee mugs, one even personalized, gift cards to Starbucks and other great places, chocolate, and some DELICIOUS caramel popcorn that is to die for.  The coffee is to help keep us awake, especially if we do early morning sessions.  The chocolate is a given.  Who can live without chocolate, right?!  And the chlorine, well, that is just in our blood; literally.  A few years ago, when I was swimming hard and training hard, one of my bosses told me that if she did a DNA test on me, my DNA would read 1/2 chlorine, 1/4 blood and the other 1/4 dolphin/mermaid.  She knows me well, and so do my kids.

Many thanks to all my fabulous, wonderful CUDAS!  I have some great kids and some fantastic swimmers.  Swim hard, swim fast, but most importantly, HAVE FUN!  Just keep swimmin’, just keep swimmin’, just keep swimmin’.