We hade some more Gadwalls on the lakes. They seem to like the colder weather we’ve been having lately, so who knows, maybe they will stick around a little longer than usual. They are in town visiting their cousins, the Mallards for a family reunion.
I don’t see any family resemblance, but then again, I don’t look like a lot of my cousins either. 🙂
Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe and stay well. Happy New Year. ‘Til next time.
I have a few Northern Shovelers who stopped by to pay a visit for the holidays. These are the girls. They are out on a girls’ retreat and left the boys at home. The females have muted colors where the males are very colorful, with bright green heads.
Yesterday, I shared the Southern tradition for good luck, by eating black-eyed peas for New Year’s Day. Double Good Luck – Part 1 Today, I am sharing the German tradition of eating soft pretzels. Larry is almost 100% German, and he had no idea about this German tradition until a few years ago, when I started making pretzels for New year’s Day.
Pretzels were often distributed to the poor as symbols of good luck for both physical and spiritual sustenance. By the seventeenth century, loops became symbols of undying love too. German children would wear pretzel necklaces on New Year’s to symbolize good luck and prosperity in the next year as well. The breaking of a “Good-Luck” New Year’s Pretzel (Grosse Neujahrsbrezel) is a long time German tradition, thought to bring good luck and prosperity in the New Year when eaten at midnight or by breakfast on New Year’s Day. https://ajeanneinthekitchen.com/2024/01/01/some-german-holiday-traditions/
I have played around with many different recipes for soft pretzels, but the one I made this year is my current new favorite recipe. They were golden and chewy on the outside and soft on the inside. A perfect way to help ring in the new year. 🙂
Soft Pretzels
1 1/2 cups warm water
4 tsp dry active yeast
1 tsp sugar
Combine together and let set for about 10 minutes, or until it becomes frothy.
5 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 TBSP canola or vegetable oil, + more to coat the bowl
1/2 cup baking soda
4 cups hot water
kosher salt
While the yeast mixture is setting, mix the flour, sugar and salt together and make a well in the center. Add the oil to the yeast mixture and whisk together. Then pour into the center of the well, and mix from the inside out until everything is mixed together.
Knead the dough for about 7 minutes, or until it forms into a soft dough ball. Cover and let rise for about 1 hour or until it doubles in size. You will have a very soft dough.
When the dough is ready, preheat the oven to 450* F or 230*C.
Cut the dough into 12 equal portions and roll into long, thin ropes, about 16 inches in size. Bring the ends together and twist twice, sticking the ends underneath.
Combine the water and the baking soda and bring to a full rapid boil. Place one pretzel at a time into the boiling mixture for about 15-30 seconds. When the pretzels rise to the top of the water, remove and drain off the excess liquid and repeat until all the pretzels are done.
Sprinkle a little kosher salt on the top of each pretzel and bake for about 8-10 minutes, or until golden brown.
Brush the pretzels with melted butter immediately after removing from the oven. You can enjoy them as is, or with a dash of mustard or cheese or cheese sauce. I like a little Dijon mustard spread on the top of mine.
Happy New Year everyone. May it be filled with good health, happiness and prosperity to all. ‘Til next time.
Many cultures from around the world have special traditions they honor for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. We have a couple here at our house too.
My mother was from Southeast Texas. The Southern culture, no matter what state, has a time-honored tradition of eating black-eyed peas for New Year’s Day. It doesn’t matter how they are served or prepared, as long as you are eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day. Eating black-eyed peas for the holiday is said to bring good luck, health and abundance. If you don’t eat your black-eyed peas you could be tempting fate for the rest of the year.
There are a few theories as to how eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day came about. One variation of the superstition says that black-eyed peas were all the enslaved people in the South had to celebrate with on the first day of January. Others say it started during the Civil War in Vicksburg, Mississippi, when the town ran out of food while under siege and the inhabitants were lucky enough to discover cow peas (a.k.a., black-eyed peas). Another legend holds that slaves ate black-eyed peas on January 1, 1863, the day the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect because they were all they had. These are only some of the reasons why black-eyed peas have been eaten in the South on every New Year’s Day since.
I fix my black-eyed peas in different ways every year. This year, I made a black-eyed pea salad with peppers and an apricot vinaigrette. I made a lot, so we should have a lot of good luck. 🙂 I also shared some with Mike & Lauren and with our neighbors and Hanaa and Aziz, so hopefully they will have good luck too.
I soaked the black-eyed peas overnight, then simmered them for about 2 1/2 hours on New Year’s Day.
While the black-eyed peas were cooking, I cut up my peppers and onions then sauteed them a bit just to soften them up.
Then I made my vinaigrette.
Once the black-eyed peas were cooked, I rinsed and drained them, then mixed everything together. You can eat this salad cold or warm.
This particular version is vegetarian, but sometimes I add chicken or ham. There are no rules to this salad, or to the black-eyed pea traditions, just as long as you eat black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day. 🙂
Happy New Year. May it be a good, happy, healthy prosperous year for everyone. ‘Til next time.
We celebrated New Year’s Eve with dinner at the Mt. Fuji Japanese Hibachi Grill with our friends Wendy and her daughter Zoe, and Mike & Lauren. It was dinner and a show celebrated with good friends. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the coming of the new year. We were all home before 9:30 PM, which was a very good thing for us too. Going out to dinner, before all the crazies and drunks come out is just perfect for us “old people”. Besides, by the time we were ready to leave the restaurant it was snowing hard and the roads were already slick and covered with ice and snow. So it was good we called it an early night.
Mt. Fuji Japanese Hibachi Grill was PACKED to the rims. We waited for over an hour to get seated, and that was with reservations, but it was well worth the wait. It was dinner and a show.
Once we got seated, we had front row seats to the culinary show before us. Our table was also the stove where we got to watch the chef perform his magic with lightening speed and agility.
Before the chef started working his magic, when we all ordered, we started off with a very clear miso soup and salad.
Then the chef came out and cooked everything for the whole table right in front of us. But to get things started, he set the table on fire. The flames were so high and danced all around for a minute or two.
I have made plenty of flambe flames before, but NOTHING to this scale.
Once the flames died down, the chef got to work. But first, he gave everyone who wanted one a shot of tequila, but I think it was really sake. I wore more than I consumed, but it was all part of the fun and part of the show. Larry got more in his mouth than I did, but he was sitting closer to the chef too. He brought out a cart with all the ingredients for everyone’s dinner, then got down to the business of making everyone’s dinner right before us.
There were 6 of us in our party and about 6 more from another party all at the same table. Here is our group – Wendy, Zoe, Mike, Lauren, me and Larry.
The chef started with the vegetables, chicken and rice first.
Next he made an “egg roll” and did some fancy handiwork with his egg and spatula.
He did everything so fast, it was hard for me to keep up with my camera. I could have taken a video, but I much prefer still shots to video.
Once the rice and noodles were made and served, he made an onion volcano.
After he put out the flames on the volcano and cut the onion up and mixed it in with the vegetables, he started making the meats and seafood.
The chef was FANTASTIC. He said everyone trains for about 3 months before they get to go out and show off their skills to everyone. He also said he’s been doing this now for about 3 years. He was full of personality. You could tell he takes a lot of pride in his skills and his work, as he should too.
Lauren ordered a sushi roll for our 1/2 of the table that came out as all the meats and seafood were cooking. That too was very good.
Most people were eating everything in stages, as they were served. I waited until the very end of the show, and everything was on my plate before I started eating, with the exceptions of the soup and salad. Needless to say, there was A LOT of food on the plate, and probably 80% of it came home for us to enjoy at another time.
I ordered the scallops. They were cooked to perfection.
Larry ordered the Ahi tuna and calamari. Everything was DELICIOUS.
It was a fun evening and a fun, entertaining way to spend New Year’s Eve- good friends, good food and good fun. Life is definitely good! 🙂
After returning home, Larry I celebrated with a glass of champagne while watching the ball drop in New York City, at the Big Apple. We did stay up ’til midnight, but just barely.
There are a couple of Mt. Fuji Japanese Hibachi’s in the Denver Metro area. We enjoyed the one in Westminster, at The Orchard Town Center, located at 14643 Orchard Pkwy, Westminster, CO 80023. I would DEFINTELY call in advance for reservations, (720) 887-1188, especially if you a coming with a group and want to sit at one of the show tables. And even with reservations, we still had to wait for quite awhile before getting seated. You can also reach them online at mtfujihibachiwestminster.com. Mt. Fuji Japanese Hibachi opens daily at 11:30 AM.
Happy New Year everyone. May it be filled with happiness, good health and prosperity for all. Good-bye 2024 and hello 2025. ‘Til next time.
My Common Goldeneyes are coming back to stay with us for awhile. They are not here en masse yet, but soon. They are just starting to arrive for the season.
We have two types of Goldeneyes that like to winter in Colorado. We have the Barrow’s Goldeneyes and the Common Goldeneyes. I haven’t seen my Barrows yet, but my Common Goldeneyes are starting to arrive. Sometimes both species are also called whistlers because of the trilling sound they make with their wings. They are usually winter latercomers. They like to make their appearance known, by arriving fashionably late.
Happy New Year. May 2025 be filled with happiness, good health and prosperity for all.
Today is the last day of 2024. Tomorrow starts a brand new year, with new opportunities and fresh beginnings. Tomorrow, it will be 2025. Last year, I shared some fun New Year’s traditions from around the world. The World Celebrates A New Year – 2024 Today, I am going to share even more fun New Year’s traditions with you.
I have two from Ireland for you. One, from last year. 1) Setting an extra plate at the table for any loved ones lost in the prior year. 2) and the new one for this year is to make sure the mistletoe is placed (or holly or ivy) under your pillow on December 31, so you can dream of your future partner.
Onions on the front door? In Greece, that is exactly what they do for New Year’s celebrations. It’s customary to hang bundles of onions above their doors as a way of inviting in good luck. Why onions? To the Greeks, onions are symbols of prosperity because they sprout even when no one is paying attention to them. On New Year’s Day, parents also wake up their children by gently bonking their kids on the head with the onions that were outside. It’s a tradition with a lot of layers.
In Denmark, they jump into the new year. They stand on a chair and “leap” into January at midnight. The effort is rewarded, since it’s supposed to be bad luck if you forget.
Making New Year’s resolutions is something most of us do, yet the vast majority of us do not follow through with them. Most of the time they are abandoned before we really give them a chance. But did you know people have been making New Year’s resolutions for over 4,000 years, starting with the Babylonians? Babylonians, were one of the first cultures to actually celebrate the changing of the year, and they made promises to pay debts or return borrowed objects. Other than my old standards, which I can always work on and always need improvement, like loosing weight, getting into better shape again (other than round) and trying to be a better person, I haven’t made any new resolutions for the upcoming year yet. I guess I still have a little more time to think about it though. I have until midnight tonight. 🙂
In Russia, (or so I’ve read, so forgive me if I am wrong) gift giving actually takes place on New Year’s Day rather than Christmas because Christmas was forbidden in Soviet Russia. Presents were delivered not by Santa but by Ded Moroz, or Father Frost, often aided by his granddaughter, Snegourochka.
I will conclude this year’s New Year’s celebratory traditions with something I think we all do, regardless of our background; kissing our loved ones at the stroke of midnight. The tradition comes from both English and German folklore, which believed that it’s “the first person with whom a person came in contact that dictated the year’s destiny.” Their advice – choose to kiss wisely.
Happy New Year everyone. May 2025 be a good year for all, filled with good health, prosperity and happiness. Out with the old and in with the new. ‘Til next time.
Are you a coffee drinker? Most people are, at least to a certain degree. Coffee is the most consumed beverage in the world, with around 2 billion cups drunk every single day. My dad had coffee running through his veins, and would consume numerous pots everyday. I love coffee, but I cannot drink too much, especially the “heavy stuff”. I drink a “cuppa” every morning, but it is more of a latte, with a milk base. Larry doesn’t like coffee at all and won’t touch anything coffee flavored or related.
Coffee has been around since around 800 A.D. It is believed that coffee and it’s energizing benefits were first noted in Ethiopia, by a young goat herder, named Kaldi. He noticed how his goats were energized after eating the berries and leaves from “a strange plant”. He took some of these berries to a local monastery and they concocted a drink from these strange berries that helped keep them stay awake when they were tired.
The popularity of coffee and its energizing effects spread around the world, to every culture. Every culture had their own unique ways of making it. The Turks created the roasting process of the coffee beans before grinding them into a fine powder in the 16th century.
By the 17th century, coffee had become a popular beverage in both Europe and North America. It became the drink of choice for “Americans” with the hated “tea tax”, which led to the Boston Tea Party, and eventually the revolution that created America. Not only was a new nation created, but it was a coffee loving nation, and not really a nation of tea drinkers.
Coffee is grown in the areas known as the “coffee belt”, which is a geographic region between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, including countries in South and Central America, Asia and Africa. All of these coffee producing countries have consistently warm, humid temperatures ranging from 59-75* F and high altitudes, from 1968-6561 feet above sea levels in common. Today, Vietnam is the largest coffee producer in the world, especially for the Robusta blend, which is also the most popular coffee variety.
All coffee beans are green before they are roasted. It is in the roasting process where the distinct flavors and qualities come to life for the different coffees. There are four main categories of roasted coffee blends – 1) light; 2) medium; 3) medium-dark and 4) dark.
Light roasted coffees are coffees where the beans are not roasted for a long period of time. They are removed from the heat after reaching an internal temperature of about 375-385*F. They are light brown in color and contain very little, if any, of the oils and acids of darker coffees.
Medium roasts are darker and are roasted longer. Their temperatures are allowed to reach about 395-410*F. Their flavor is a little richer than the light roasts and are a little more balanced. They too are low in oils and acidic flavors.
Medium-dark roasts are roasted even longer, and thus are darker and richer in flavor and color yet again. Their temperatures are allowed to reach between 412-424*F. These are the rich, bold flavored coffees used a lot in espressos and French press coffees.
And lastly, there are the dark roasts, which are bold, smoky, full bodied coffees, with a slightly sweeter and caramelized flavor. They are roasted until they reach between 428-446*F.
Today, there are many different coffee blends and varieties, with flavors and styles enough to please all coffee drinkers around the world. The more popular varieties come from four basic types – 1) Arabica, which are smooth, slightly sweet and slightly floral in taste and character; 2) Robusta, which are strong, bold, earthy and nutty; 3) Liberica, known for their strong, woody and and smoky nuances. These varieties are also the least caffeinated varieties in the coffee world too; and 4) Excelsa, a derivative of the Liberica blends, only bolder, with more depth and more flavor intensity.
Arabica and Robusta are the most popular types of coffee beans produced.
So if you are a coffee drinker, go grab, or better yet make, yourself a “cuppa” of your favorite morning blend. Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe and stay well, and HAPPY NEW YEAR! ‘Til next time.
When we were picking up Mike & Lauren before heading to lunch at Perdida, Perdida, as I was getting out of the car, I noticed a beautiful Redtail Hawk in the tree behind their garage. He was just watching and waiting for his opportunity to strike. He looked so beautiful and regal perched in the tree.
Have I mentioned how much I just love all the birds of prey? 🙂
It was a late Christmas/early New Year’s lunch with Janet & Bob and Mike & Lauren. We all went to lunch at a new restaurant called Perdida before going wining.
Perdida is a new Mexican restaurant with a very beachy, coastal feel and vibe. It is like a quick trip to Cabo, without leaving our own hometown. Perdida just opened about 3 weeks ago, so it is all fresh and new, ready to ring in the new year. It is one of 12 restaurants owned by the Gastamo Group, based in the Denver area. Perdida – Mexican Kitchen was created by Gastamo Group, the team behind some of Denver’s most celebrated restaurants including Park Burger, Lady Nomada, Park & Co, Homegrown Tap & Dough, and Birdcall.
Perdida brings the vibrant flavors of Coastal Mexico to life, focusing on fresh, wood-fired dishes made with local and organic ingredients.
The food was as fresh and colorful as the decor of the restaurant itself. We started off with chips and salsa before our lunch came. They offered salsa that everyone knows and loves, as well as a spicy, creamy salsa too. Both were very good.
We all ordered something different. Three of us ordered different taco versions, all of which came with black beans and lime cilantro rice.
Larry ordered his tacos as lettuce wraps for a different perspective.
Lauren ordered fried shrimp.
Janet and Bob shared a couple of plates. One was fried chili rellenos with a green chili sauce on he side.
And they also ordered a combo plate.
All six of us raved about what we ordered and we all said we will definitely be back again in the near future too. It was a fun lunch, followed by a fun time wining at InVINtions. We took our new wine game, Wine Wars Wine Wars – The Game and played that while enjoying our wines.
Perdida offers dine-in and carry-out options, as well as catering and their food truck, that will be out and about in the very near future.
Currently, there are two Perdida locations. There is the first one, in the Wash Park area of Denver, located at 1066 S. Gaylord Street, (303) 529-1365, and the brand new location in Westminster, located at 1257 W. 120th Avenue (720) 826-6555. Both locations are open seven days a week – Sunday-Thursday from 11:00 AM-9:00 PM and from 11:00-10:00 PM on Fridays and Saturdays. For more information you can reach out to them either by phone or online at http://www.perdidakitchen.com or perdidawestminstergastamogroup.com. If you are looking for a quick, delicious south of the border get-away, but only have time for lunch or dinner, check out Perdida. You’ll feel like you’ve just had a relaxing trip to the sand and surf of Cabo.
Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.
A Jeanne in the Kitchen 