A Jeanne in the Kitchen

So far, this is the only actual Christmas picture we have taken of us this season. From our house to yours (even though this was at Janet and Bob’s house). Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy New Year to all.

Tis the season for all kinds of fun things. I should be making cookies, and I have been, and I will be baking more, but I took a break from the cookies to make something else fun. I got some new “toys” that I had to play with. I ordered some gummy bear molds and I could not wait to play with them. I made some wine gummy bears, or gummy bears for adults only.

These adult gummy bears are so easy to make. These same molds can make any kind of gummy bears, but I decided to initiate them with the adult only version first. The main ingredient is one of my favorite things – WINE!!!!!! Hmmmmm I wonder why I chose to make these? I’ll have to think on that for a bit. I can’t imagine why I chose to make these? 🙂

Wine Gummy Bears

I cup of wine of your choice

1/2 cup sugar

3 TBSP Knox gelatin

Mix everything together in a saucepan and cook until the temperature gets to 160* F, whisking constantly. If the temperature goes above 160* F you will loose the wine content to evaporation and where’s the fun in that? Once the wine mixture is ready, take an eye dropper and fill it with the liquid then carefully fill the molds.

I made two batches. The first batch was with white wine. I was experimenting, so I was not sure how much it would make and I wanted a variety, so I do not have a lot of white gummy bears. After I filled a mold with white wine, I added a couple of drops of pink food coloring to the mix for some pink gummy bears. It was still with the white wine though.

Once the molds were filled I chilled them in the refrigerator for 90 minutes.

When the bears were set, I popped them out and made a new batch with red wine.

These adult gummies are both fun and easy to make. They will be a big hit at your next party, that’s for sure. I dare you to stop at just one. Cheers!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a safe and Happy Holiday season. ‘Til next time.

The Christmas party at the North Pole must have been one wild party. This elf apparently had to much eggnog.

Salads are not something that we normally think of as a Christmas food, however, a salad is really any combination of foods combined together and served as one. I made this colorful Christmas vegetable salad before we left to go to Hays, KS for the Billinger Christmas, and added the bacon and creamy garlic dressing right before we served it. It traveled very well and it was very colorful and full of vegetables. There were no leftovers, so I will take that as a good sign that it was enjoyed by all.

I steamed all the vegetables and tossed them all together before we left. I was going to add radishes as well, but decided to leave them on the side instead. A key ingredient to a good salad is the freshness of the ingredients used. Salads are most often served as a cold side dish, but they can be hot as well. This was a cold salad, but I suppose if you wanted to, you could also serve it warm. It is just cooked vegetables after all.

Hearty Christmas Vegetable Salad with Creamy Garlic Dressing

The Dressing

I made the dressing before we left as well and brought it with us to add to the salad right before we served it.

1 cup maytonnaise

2 tsp either white wine vinegar or lemon balsamic vinegar. I used the lemon balsamic vinegar.

1 TBSP garlic

1/2 tsp Italian seasoning or about 1/4 tsp of each oregano, basil, thyme and marjoram

1/4 tsp dry mustard

a dash of salt

2 TBSP milk

Whisky everything together until smooth and creamy and chill in the refrigerator until ready to use.

The Salad

1/2 head of cauliflower cut into bite-sized florets

1/2 head of broccoli cut into bite-sized florets

1- 1 1/2 cups green beans, cut into pieces about 1 inch in size

1- 1 1/2 cups carrots, sliced

1- 1 1/2 cups grape tomatoes, cut in half

4-5 pieces of cooked bacon, crumbled

Steam all the vegetables together for about 7 minutes or until they are mostly tender, then immediately chill in an ice bath to prevent them from cooking any more.

Toss them all together and add the bacon crumbles and tomatoes as well.

Add the dressing right before you are ready to serve the salad and enjoy. It was a big hit and disappeared very quickly.

Merry Christmas Everyone and to all a safe and Happy Holiday season. ‘Til next time.

Presents!!!! What would Christmas be without presents? Why do we give presents at Christmas?

Giving gifts to those we love has been a tradition in human culture since the beginning of time, dating as far back as even the caveman times. In primitive cavemen culture, the giving of gifts was fairly common as it was used to show love and affection towards one another.  Later during the Egyptian era, gifts were most notably given to their pharaohs who built massive pyramids to store their wealth for the afterlife. In Roman times people would present each other with good luck gifts, which lasted for centuries and later influenced all of the Western civilization onwards. By the Medieval age, gifts were used to secure the personal favor of the king or show allegiance in times of war. Today gift giving is still part of our everyday culture and defines who we are and the message we want to send with our gift.

Although it is a tradition, did you know that gift giving can also have a psychological effect on the giver and receiver? In the standardized assessment of individuals who both gave and received gifts, greater happiness appeared to rest in those who gave. The act of giving, no matter how big or small, makes us feel good.

Giving gets under our skin in the best possible way. While it feels good to be on the receiving end, there’s a feeling of self-gratification when you’re the one who is doing the giving. This can’t be measured by monetary value. The happiness you get from opening a gift is only temporary, but giving provides a more self-fulfilling experience that lasts for a long period. Furthermore, when we give without expecting anything in return, we are improving our psychological health.

Giving gifts at Christmas is a long-standing Christian tradition that dates back to the very beginning of Christmas. Gift giving at Christmas is a Christian tradition that is widely practiced around the world. To Christians, the gifts given at Christmas are symbolic of the tributes made to the baby Jesus by the Three Wise Men after his birth during the story of the Nativity. Though giving holiday gifts is by no means exclusive to Christianity. It is practiced in many religions, with it’s roots going back to the days of the Ancient Romans, and the Saturnalia festivities.

I love presents. Of course I love to receive them, but as much as I love to get presents, I enjoy giving them much more.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a safe and Happy Holiday season. ‘Til next time.

As you know, I love to get very creative with my leftovers. I love to disguise them and make them completely different than they were as “firstovers”. I like to make them so you’d never know they were leftovers at all. It has become an art form and a fun game for me. I think I have definitely mastered my craft too.

Right before we travel, whether near or far, we try our best to use up whatever leftovers we have on hand. I think we have successfully cleaned out our refrigerator and can start anew once we get home again, even though we will only be gone for a couple of days.

This first meal is a combination of my leftover corn and crab dip Corn and Crab Dip that I made for our latest round of nibblies when we went to InVINtions with Julia and Bruce. I marinated some pork chops in my tangy BBQ sauce Southern Comfort and roasted them. Once the pork chops were cooked, I topped them with the corn and crab dip and served it all with some asparagus topped with garlic and mushrooms and some roasted potatoes, with a rich, butter chardonnay on the side YUM!

We had another leftover meal on another night with a whole new set of leftovers. We pulled some gumbo A Pot of Gumbo out of the freezer and my friend Su gave me some of her shrimp cakes and shrimp that were leftover from out last weekly church meeting for the year. I combined them to make a tasty meal from the Bayou. I added some of my spinach pesto Some of the Best Parts of Thanksgiving Are The Leftovers to top the shrimp cakes, and that really livened them up.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a Happy, safe holiday season. ‘Til next time.

We are leaving in a couple of hours, so I thought I would sneak a couple of posts in before we go. I will only be gone for the weekend. Not to long.

All the presents and lights and decorations are fun and I absolutely love them. But the main reason for the season is celebrating the birth of Jesus and celebrating it with family, friends and loved ones.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a Happy, safe holiday season. ‘Til next time.

The coffee cart at church has become very popular. People love having the welcoming coffee cart with all the goodies. It says “welcome to the church”. It has become so popular that Pastor Matthew has asked me to do the coffee and cookie cart for our two services on Christmas Eve’s “Eve”. It will be filled with hot chocolate, apple cider, coffee, and lots and lots of cookies. I made the first batch cookies yesterday, and will continue to make some more everyday until we have our celebrations.

The first batch of Christmas cookies is a batch of colorful thumbprint cookies.

When we decorated all the cookies with Janet and Bob last week, Janet gave me all her leftover frosting. Silly me though, I didn’t think it was stiff enough to pipe on to the cookies, so I made more. Janet’s would have been perfect for piping; it was mine that was to soft. Don’t worry, I have plenty more cookies to make, and I have no doubt all the frosting will be used up. I never let these little hick-ups get me down though. Rather than piping the frosting onto the cookies, I just spooned it in instead. I think they still look fun and festive. What do you think?

These cookies are super easy to make and only require a few simple ingredients.

Thumbprint Cookies

1 cup or 2 sticks of softened butter

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 egg

2 tsp vanilla

1 tsp rum extract, optional – if not using, add another tsp of vanilla (that’s what I did since I am making them for kids)

2 cups flour

1 tsp nutmeg

Mix the butter and sugar together until creamy then add the egg and vanilla and mix again. Add the flour and nutmeg 1/2 at a time, mixing in between each addition. Do not over mix or the dough will be tough. Once the dough has been formed, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and let it set in the refrigerator for at least one hour before using.

When you are ready to make the cookies, remove he dough from the fridge and let it rest for a few minutes before making the cookies.

Preheat the oven to 325* F or 165* C.

Form the dough into dough balls about 1 inch in size. Then punch down in the center of each dough ball to form a pocket. You can use the end of a wooden spoon, your thumb, or get creative like I did and use the end of a wine cork. (Wine corks come in handy when you least expect them to). Place the dough balls on an ungreased cookie sheet about 2 inches apart.

Bake for about 10-15 minutes, or until the are slightly golden. If the centers fill up while baking, while they are still hot, punch them down again to form a well. Allow the cookies to cool completely on a cookie rack before filling the centers with frosting.

The Frosting

2 cups sifted powdered sugar

3 TBSP softened butter

1/2 tsp either vanilla or rum extract

2-3 TBSP milk

food coloring

Mix everything together and depending on the consistency, either spoon in or pipe into the cookies. Add colorful sprinkles too if you like. After all, these are supposed to be colorful and festive.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a Happy, safe holiday season. ‘Til next time.

What would Christmas be without the beautiful lights? I love seeing all the Christmas lights. Here are a couple of new versions of Christmas lights here in Colorado.

This is the famous mountain town and ski resort Vail all lit up in its Christmas glory.

This is an aerial view of the Denver Botanical Gardens with the Denver skyline in the background.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a Happy, safe holiday season.

I will be out of town for a couple of days, doing the Billinger Christmas with Larry’s family, but I will be back again real soon. It will only be a quick trip.

Larry loves his BBQ. We were out doing errands and he decied to go out to eat rather than cook at home. It is still his birthday week, so I let him decide where we should go. He chose Sugarfire Smoke House in Westminster. Sugarfire is mostly in the St. Louis area, but they are now branching out to other areas and other states as well. This is the first Sugarfire in Colorado.

Sugarfire is a new idea in BBQ restaurants. It is kind of a medium-fast food dine-in restaurant. It offers a menu that complements the staples influenced by the holy trinity of barbecue (St Louis/KC, Memphis, Texas) with daily specials crafted by our amazing team.   The emphasis is on the St. Louis style BBQ, created by Chef Mike Johnson. “From a sandwich piled high with pork, brisket, exotic veggies and/or fried treats, to a smoked Japanese noodle dish, prepare your taste buds to be hypnotized”. 

Larry chose the Brisket Muddy, which was a brisket Philly-style sandwich and I ordered the Brisket Dip. We split some BBQ beans and fries. Everything was very tasty and cooked to perfection.

Sugarfire also offers a variety of unique, homemade sauces to go with everything. I sampled the coffee BBQ sauce on my sandwich. That was really good.

The Westminster location is the first Sugarfire with a full bar that features drink specials, local craft beers, wine and liquor to suit every taste.  

Chef Johnson studied with Myron Mixon, cooked under Emeril Lagasse and Charlie Trotter, and has overseen the creation of six other restaurants. “Sugarfire has won so many awards it’s hard to keep track. [They] were named Best Barbecue by the Travel Channel, St. Louis Magazine, Feast Magazine, and [they’ve] won awards at the Memphis in May World Barbecue Championships. [They’ve] been featured on Pitmasters, Beat Bobby Flay, and Burgers, Brew, and Que. Both The New York Times and Snoop Dogg have complimented [their] food. And they really like that combination”.

The Westminster Sugarfire is a blend of its St. Louis roots with Colorado influences. The recipes and food are St. Louis style and the artwork is the handiwork of local Colorado artists.

You can dine in, or you can have Sugarfire come to you. They can handle any size party and will cater anything from 10-10,000. Nothing is to big or to small.

Sugarfire is located 14375 Orchard Parkway, Suite 100, Westminster, CO. You can dine in person, or give them a CALL AT (720) 639-4903 or order online at http://www.SugarfireSmokehouse.com No matter how you find them, you and your taste buds will be glad you did. You’re going to love it. I GAR-UN-TEE it.