I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
I have been collecting Santa Clauses for years and years. I just love Santa Claus and even more so, I love the magic of the season he brings. We store them safely, or so we thought, in the basement until it is time to bring them out again. But apparently we did NOT secure them as safely as we had thought because Juneau managed to find them and attack them. She didn’t just attack them, but completely maimed and decapitated some of them. So because of Juneau’s wild ways, we decided NOT to put a lot of Christmas decorations out this year, including my beloved Santas. I was not planning on replacing the ones she killed, but then I saw a couple of new ones that just needed a home, so they came home with me. Those are the only Santas I have up this year too. We have them way up high in our art niche above the fireplace, out of Juneau’s reach and range of destruction. Yes, I am a believer. I believe in the magic of the season. I believe in Santa Claus.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to one and to all. Make the season bright and merry. Stay safe and stay well Everyone. ‘Til next time.
It was time to wine again, which means it was also time to make a nibbly tray to go with the wines. We went to InVINtions with Julia and Bruce. Julia is like me (and Janet), and we love to cook. This means, no matter what the occasion, we will NEVER go hungry. And not only we will never go hungry, but we will make sure no one else does either.
I had a variety of olives and dolmas (stuffed grape leaves), ham ( I made ham for Larry’s birthday dinner. More to follow later.) and cheese with rosemary bread and a cranberry-orange spread, and a hot corn and crab dip with crostini. Julia brought plenty of nibblies too. She made some delicious lamb pockets and her sourdough bread sticks. All of this made for a delicious lunch spread to enjoy with our wines.
Corn and Crab Dip
For the crostini, I just brushed some baguette slices with a combination of lime and garlic olive oil and baked for about 40 minutes at 375* F or about 250* C, flipping them at the half way mark. I made those the day before and stored them in am air tight container.
1 cup corn
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and diced fine
8 oz lump crab meat
4 bacon slices, cooked and crumbled
1 TBSP garlic
1 1/2 cups mayonnaise
1/4 cup Peruvian peppers or sweet peppers diced
1 cup shredded jalapeno jack cheese
1/4 cup green onions, sliced thin
1 tsp black pepper
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese or cheese blend for topping
olive oil
Preheat the oven to 425* F or 200* C.
Spray a baking dish with cooking spray.
Cook the bacon then remove and crumble it once it is cooled. In the same pan, with the bacon grease, add a bit of regular olive oil and some lime olive oil (optional), then add both the corn and the jalapenos. if using sweet peppers, cook them with the corn and jalapenos too. Cook for about 2-3 minutes, or until the jalapenos have softened.
Combine everything together except the cheddar cheese and mix well.
Spread everything evenly into the prepared pan and add the cheddar cheese on top.
Bake uncovered for about 20 minutes, or until the cheese starts to turn slightly golden and crusty.
Serve with crostini or bread. This can served hot or warm. Either way, it will definitely be a crowd pleaser an everyone will keep coming back for more.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to one and all. Keep them safe. ‘Til next time.
Gingerbread houses are a fun Christmas tradition for many families around the world. The tradition has been around for many 100’s of years.
The term gingerbread originated in Medieval England and meant preserved ginger. Today, the term gingerbread is now broadly used to describe any type of sweet treat that combines ginger with honey, treacle or molasses.
The first known recipe for gingerbread came from the Ancient Greeks around 2400 B.C. Then it migrated to China, and from China it spread all throughout Europe and to the rest of the world. The hard cookies, sometimes gilded with gold leaf and shaped like animals, kings and queens, were a staple at Medieval fairs in England, France, Holland and Germany. Queen Elizabeth I is credited with the idea of decorating the cookies in this fashion, after she had some made to resemble the dignitaries visiting her court. Over time some of these festivals came to be known as Gingerbread Fairs, and the gingerbread cookies served there were known as ‘fairings.’ The shapes of the gingerbread changed with the season, including flowers in the spring and birds in the fall. Elaborately decorated gingerbread became synonymous with all things fancy and elegant in England.
The making of gingerbread houses started in Germany in the 16th century. The elaborate cookie-walled houses, decorated with foil in addition to gold leaf, became associated with Christmas tradition. Their popularity rose when the Brothers Grimm wrote the story of Hansel and Gretel, in which the main characters stumble upon a house made entirely of treats deep in the forest. It is unclear whether or not gingerbread houses were a result of the popular fairy tale, or vice versa.
When the Colonists came to America, they brought the tradition of the gingerbread house to America, where is has blossomed and has become a time-honored family tradition at Christmas. They can be big or small. Some are simple while others are quite elaborate. There are no rules. Just let your imagination run wild and see where it takes you. If stored and cared for properly, they can last a lifetime too.
This is Janet and Bob’s gingerbread house that their kids, Jeanette and Brian, made eons ago, when they were still kids themselves. They now have kids of their own and the tradition continues.
These are some random samples of gingerbread houses from around the world.
Believe it or not, I have never made a gingerbread house. I was going to with my students, but their mom said they had already made theirs. I was looking forward to it too. Oh well, I guess I will have to make mine another time. Maybe next year.
Enjoy the season and spend time with fun family traditions with those you love. Make them merry and bright and a time to spread good cheer.
Our friends Janet and Bob have this fun tradition of baking, decorating and boxing up cookies; 100’s of cookies for all their neighbors, teachers and co-workers. We have been a part of this tradition for about 5 or so years too. We are blessed to be part of the family and part of the tradition.
Brian, Peter and Shelly boxing up the cookies.
For the gingerbread cookies, Janet kicks everything off by baking about 120 gingerbread cookies of all shapes. Then the frosting is made. This is three generations working together to make the frosting.
Emily is giving it her stamp of approval and says it tastes just right.
Once the frosting is made Emily and mom add some color.
It’s time to decorate.
All the cookies come out great, but the only ones that really matter are the ugly sweaters at the end.
The decorating is fun, but it’s also serious business, particularly when it comes time to do the ugly sweaters. We save those for last, and they are all judged. Who made the ugliest sweater this year?
Here are the entries for 2021. Which one do you think is the ugliest of all?
And the winner is …. At first we had a three way tie, so we had to put it to the vote again.
This year, Bob won.
Emily’s came in at a close second.
After the cookies were all done, and we had worked up an appetite, it was time for pizza, pictures and presents.
Thank you Janet, Bob, Brian, Shelly, Peter and Emily for letting us be a part of the fun, the decorating and the family.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a safe Holiday season. Til next time.
It was another fun Friday cooking session with Noah. This is my last session with him for this year because of the holidays. We will resume again next year. Noah is always so much fun to cook with. He has fun with everything we cook. I asked him yesterday if there is anything we have made that he doesn’t like. He thought about it for a minute, then said “No. He has liked everything”. YAY!!!
This time we made a Christmas Three-bean salad and some Polish sausages to go with the salad. This three bean salad is a new twist to the traditional three bean salad. It was tangy and zippy and full of color and flavor. I like this new salad so much better than than traditional version.
Noah likes to eat healthy foods, and I love to cook healthy foods that taste good. This salad was both. We have certain challenges in Noah’s little studio kitchen, so I trimmed and cooked the green beans at my house and then packaged them up to take with me for our lesson.
8 oz green beans, trimmed and cooked, cut into pieces about 1 inch in size
1 can red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 1/2 cups edamame beans or soybeans, peeled and thawed
2 1/2 cups carrots, peeled and cubed
1/2 cup green onions, sliced thin
3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
2/3 cup tomato juice or V-8 juice
1/2 cup sugar
3 TBSP either dry red wine or apple juice
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 TBPS minced garlic or about 2 tsp garlic powder
Cut all the vegetables and beans and mix them together in a large bowl.
Combine all the wet ingredients together in a separate bowl then add just as much as needed to the vegetables and bean mixture. Toss everything together and serve.
And since it is Christmas, it was time for a present to my star apprentice. I think he liked it.
As he was flipping through the pages, Noah realized we have already made some of these recipes. That put a big smile on his face. He was real excited to get his first cookbook. Hopefully it will be the first of many.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays Everyone. Make them merry and keep them safe. ‘Til next time.
Yams and sweet potatoes are interchangeable for me. Yes there are differences, but they are subtle. I found a delicious recipe for stuffed sweet potatoes that initially I was going to make for Thanksgiving, but we had more than enough food as it was, so there was no need. When I did decide to make this recipe, the sweet potatoes that were available were very small and puny, so I opted to use yams instead. They didn’t look as pretty or as colorful as they would have been with sweet potatoes, but they still tasted very good, and the taste is really all that matters.
These stuffed yams, or sweet potatoes, can be eaten anytime of day and they will hit the spot. They are loaded with goodness. They were loaded with apple shreds and bacon, topped with more bacon and pomegranate seeds and parsley. Anything with bacon will always be good.
Stuffed Yams
4 medium sweet potatoes or yams
2 TBSP soft butter
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 TBSP brown sugar
2 medium apples, peeled and shredded
5 slices of cooked bacon, crumbled
2 TBSP pomegranate seeds
chopped parsley
Preheat the oven to 425* F or 200* C
Scrub the yams or sweet potatoes and poke holes all around with a fork. Bake them for about 45-60 minutes or until they are tender. Allow them to cool for about 10 minutes or so then cut in 1/2 and scoop out the insides, leaving about 1/4 inch around the skins.
Mix the inside of the yams with the apple shreds, 1/2 of the bacon, brown sugar, salt and butter and mash everything up. Carefully reload the skins with the mashed up mixture. Lower the oven temperature to 400* F and place the loaded skins back in the oven for an additional 15-20 minutes.
Sprinkle the tops with the rest of the bacon, pomegranate seeds and the chopped parsley. It is colorful, festive, healthy and very tasty too. What more can you ask for, right?!
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays Everyone. May they be merry and bright and safe for you all. ‘Til next time.
WE HAVE SNOW!!!!!! At long last, the white stuff is falling from the skies above. This is our FIRST snow of the season. It is not a lot, but hey, I’ll take it! To me, there is always something magical about the first snow of the season. I just love it.
There is just something about onion rings. I just love them, but ONLY the good ones. If they are not good, they are not worth the calories for me and I can easily pass on them. They have to be light and super crispy for me to really enjoy them. I don’t eat or make them very often, but when I do, I just want to eat the whole batch. I think I could easily make them my whole meal when I do make them. Besides, they are best when served hot, hot, hot, and they do not taste nearly as good when they are leftover and re-heated, so you have to eat them all, right?! 🙂
No one knows for sure when onion rings were first invented, but it is believed that they are of British and American origins. Some say they were first invented in England in the early 17th century, around 1802. They were fried in lard and served with a mustard butter sauce then. But they really became popular all around the United States around the early 1900’s. Others say they were first invented in France in 1469 when King Louis XI requested a new snack from his staff. Today, onion rings are enjoyed all over the world, but mostly in the English speaking countries, which totally makes sense if they came over from England and spread throughout the British colonies.
As with anything that is well loved in many countries and in many regions of the world, there are many different versions of onion rings. I have made and shared other delicious versions for you before Red Chili Onion Rings, Perfect Light and Crispy Onion Rings, and I am giving you yet another tasty recipe to try as well. I like them all, but so far, I think this recipe is my favorite. Today’s recipe is a buttermilk version of fried onion rings. They literally just melted in our mouths. They were so light and crispy and full of flavor.
Buttermilk Onion Rings
I use the powdered buttermilk that I mix with milk instead of water. I HATE regular buttermilk and to buy it for just one or two recipes every now and then is such a waste, because it will go bad long before I can use it all up. My grandfather used to love buttermilk and would drink it all the time. So of course I wanted to try it too. YUCK! It was NOT what I had hoped it would be. So I buy the powdered version and mix it up when I need it.
The Seasoned Flour
4 cups flour
2 TBSP Cajun or Creole seasoning
1 TBSP salt
1 TBSP white pepper
1 TBSP black pepper
Mix everything together then set aside.
Buttermilk Egg Wash
1 egg
2 cups buttermilk
2 TBSP Cajun or Creole seasoning
1 TBSP salt
1 TBSP white pepper
1 TBSP black pepper
2 1/4 tsp brown sugar
vegetable oil for frying
Combine all the ingredients together in a separate bowl and set aside.
6 large onions peeled and sliced in thick rings
Some recipes call for soaking the onions in ice cold water for about 30 minutes before battering them and frying them up. I have never done this. However, I do make the batter ahead of time and let is rest for about 30 minutes before dipping my onions.
Get the oil to 350* F or 180* C. I like to deep fry them in our deep fryer but you can also pan-fry them too. You just want to make sure you have enough oil to completely cover the rings.
Dip the onion rings in the egg-buttermilk mixture and thoroughly coat. Then carefully shake off the excess liquid. Place the rings in the flour mixture and do the same. Thoroughly coat them and shake off the excess.
When the rings are ready, carefully place them in the hot oil. Do not over crowd them. Fry them in small batches until they are all cooked. Fry them for about 4-5 minutes or until golden brown. Drain them on a paper towel to remove the excess grease and serve immediately.
DELICIOUS!!!! I dare you to stop at just one. I know I sure can’t.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays Everyone. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.
Before Juneau, aka our destructo puppy, came into our lives, I used to decorate every room in the house with a little bit of Christmas cheer and spirit. This year, we are only doing the minimal decorations, for that very same reason, and they are up high, where hopefully they are out of her reach and out of her range of destruction. But it is fun to see others decorating every room with the holiday spirit. This year, I will enjoy them vicariously.
As of today, December 9th, we still have not had any snow. This is very rare and unusual for us. But I just know when it does come, it will come down hard. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. 🙂
A Jeanne in the Kitchen 