A Jeanne in the Kitchen

I made four dishes for our party, and then everyone else brought a wide variety of dishes to share. Even though it was a potluck, I always still make quite a few dishes as well. I can’t help myself, and often times Larry has to reel me in by reminding me that others are bringing things too. He also tells me NOT to make too many things that are too complicated to make. I kind of laugh at this one though. The last menu item I made for our party was a batch of little smokies that I cooked in a tomato wine sauce. It was simple and easy-peasy, but they all disappeared pretty quickly; always a good sign. So I am assuming everyone liked them.

Little Smokies in a Tomato-Wine Sauce

These little smokies were super simple. I just put everything in the crockpot and let them cook while I did other things to get ready for our little shindig.

I had some leftover tomato sauce, mixed in some fresh tomatoes and wine, along with some dried herbs like basil, oregano and Herbs de Provence, as well as some garlic and dried onions. I let everything cook at medium-high for about 2-3 hours, and then they were done. As I said, easy-peasy.

But just because something is easy-peasy does not mean that it is not still delicious. Don’t be fooled by the simplicity of some things. I have a confession to make. Sometimes I too don’t appreciate the simple things, particularly when it comes to cooking. I like to challenge myself, both in and out of the kitchen. But sometimes, I have to remind myself, that simple is often the best.

Remember the K.I.S.S rule – Keep it simple (Stupid). Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe and stay well. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas. ‘Til next time.

Another menu item from our ornament exchange party was some beef bites. I used the London broil beef round that Larry smoked and turned it into some beef bites on crostioni.

I coated my baguette rounds with olive oil on both sides and baked them at 400*F or 200*C for about 25-30 minutes, flipping them over at about the half way point to get them golden brown and crispy. I used regular olive oil and a hint of red chili oil too.

I made these the day before the party then stored them in a sealed plastic bag until I was ready to use them.

I had a vision of what I wanted to make, but not being a cheese eater, I wasn’t sure what the best cheese option was. So I asked the cheese expert at my local store, and she recommended the Port Salut. I followed her advice, and these were a huge success.

I sliced the beef into thin slices. I put a small spread of either sour cherry spread or whole grain mustard on the crostini, added a little Port Salut soft cheese, topped them with the beef and then an additional spread of sauce on top. Then I added a tiny sprig of fresh thyme for decoration.

These were a HUGE hit and disappeared very quickly. And as you can see, they were elegant, but were super easy to make. They are perfect for any party or setting where you want to add some delicious nibblies. As much as I like to fancy things up, simple is often the best choice. Things don’t have to be fancy to taste good. But they do have to look fancy and pretty. Make people think you slaved away to prepare them. Keep it your little secret that you didn’t. 🙂

Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe and stay well. Happy Holidays. ‘Til next time.

One of the menu items I served at our annual Christmas party, Post Party was mini quiches. I made quite a few, both vegetarian and bacon versions. I made a lot because I knew I was going to have a house full of hungry people. Sometimes, I make mini, mini quiches, but this time I opted for a medi-mini size. I made them in my regular muffin pans.

They must have been very popular, because they ALL disappeared. There were none left! 🙂

Mini Quiches

The only real difference between my two versions were that most of them had bacon, and some did not. Other than that, they were filled with asparagus, red bell pepper, mushrooms, garlic and shallots.

I made my normal go-to dough. Once it was ready to work with, I rolled it out very thin and molded into my muffin pans, then filled each one full of fresh goodness. One of the many beauties of quiche, is that anything goes for the filling. You can make it with just about anything you wish and it will come out great.

I doubled my amounts of the egg mixture to fill all my cups, but I will give you the recipe to fill about 2 dozen medi-mini quiches, in a normal muffin pan. I also made a double batch of my dough.

The Dough

1 1/2 cups flour

6 TBSP cold, butter, cubed

1 tsp salt

1 egg

5-6 TBSP heavy whipping cream

1 TBSP dried herbs, optional

In a food processor, pulse the flour, butter, salt and herbs if using, together until it resembles coarse sand, about 15-20 seconds. Add the egg and cream and mix again until everything forms into a ball. Wrap in plastic wrap and set in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before rolling it out to shape.

The Filling

1 bunch cooked asparagus, cut into very small pieces

1 red bell pepper, diced fine

1 TBSP garlic

1-1 1/2 cups mushrooms, rinsed and sliced thin

1-2 small shallots, minced

1 TBSP fresh herbs – I used oregano, thyme and sage, chopped very fine

salt & pepper to taste

8 eggs

1/4-1/3 cup heavy whipping cream

1/2 lb bacon, diced and fully cooked

1-1/2 cups shredded cheese – I used Monterrey Jack

Preheat the oven to 375* F or 191*C.

Cook the vegetables in olive oil and/or butter for about 5 minutes, or until al dente. If you want to prepare both vegetarian and non vegetarian options, cook the bacon and vegetables separately. Cook the bacon fully and drain off the excess grease then mix in with the cooked vegetables, after you have made your vegetarian versions. If you are only making the meat option, you can cook everything together.

Whisk the eggs, cream and seasonings together well in a separate bowl and set aside.

Roll out your dough and use a cookie cutter to shape it. Then roll the dough out again, making it very thin. Mold it into the pans. No need to add oil or spray since there is so much butter in the dough. Press the dough firmly into the pans.

Add a little shredded cheese. Add about 1 TBSP of filling to each cup. Add about 2 TBSP, or as much of the egg mixture as the cups can hold with out overflowing.

Bake for about 30-45 minutes, or until the egg mixture is firm and set, and the crusts are lightly golden brown. Allow them to cool for a bit before removing them from the pan. Use a knife or spoon if needed to help lift them out a bit, but they should just pop right out of the pan. These are best when served hot, warm or at room temperature. You can enjoy these at anytime. They are good for breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, or appetizers.

Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.

Well, another successful Christmas party is officially in the books. We had a houseful of people, a lot of good food, and a lot of fun times that included lots of conversations between old friends and new, lots of laughter and of course, the star of the evening, the ORNAMENT EXCHANGE. 🙂 As always, there were a lot of fun, creative ornaments that came to the party, with a lot of good-hearted “stealing” as well. In the end, I think everyone enjoyed the ornaments they took home with them. 🙂

I made my cranberry chutney cake, Cranberry Chutney Cake along with some mini quiches, both vegetarian and with bacon, some little roast beef rounds with Port Salut cheese, and some little smoky sausages in a tomato-wine sauce. I also provided other nibblies, goodies, and sweets and treats.

Pre-party setting up. Just waiting for the guests to arrive.

And arrive they did too. We think we had about 50 or so people in attendance, all having a great time. Everyone who came were friends and family. Some were friends of friends. Some were work friends. Some were hockey friends. Some were neighbors, some were swim friends. And some were friends who are actually family.

We were so busy “hosting” that we forgot to get any pictures of Larry and I. But I will give you the photo we sent out to everyone with our Christmas cards. It was taken in Canada, on our epic journey through the Canadian Rockies.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Holidays everyone. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.

We are having our annual ornament exchange party today. It’s always so much fun. I make it as a potluck, where everyone brings a dish to share, but I also make quite a few things too. You can’t keep me out of the kitchen, especially if there is a party going on. 🙂 I made my time consuming dishes yesterday, and will do the simple things today, as well as some last minute cleaning and straightening up. One of things I made was a cranberry chutney cake, from my leftover Thanksgiving cranberry chutney. Cranberry Chutney Remember how I told you I had something sweet in mind for the leftovers? Well, here it is.

Cranberry Chutney Cake

I started with a basic pound cake recipe, and added the chutney in the center of the cake and on top for decoration as well.

Preheat the oven to 325* F or 163*C.

Spray a bundt pan with cooking spray.

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup or 2 sticks softened butter

1 cup sugar

4 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla

1-1 1/2 cups prepared cranberry chutney

lemon glaze

Combine all the dry ingredients and mix well, then set aside.

Mix the butter and sugar together until creamy, then add the eggs 1 at a time, mixing in between each addition. Add the vanilla and mix.

Add the dry ingredients 1/2 at a time and mix in between. Mix just until everything is incorporated into the batter.

Add half the batter into the prepared bundt pan and spread evenly. Spoon the cranberry chutney over the batter. Add the rest of the batter on top of the chutney, again, spreading evenly.

Bake for about an hour or until the cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool completely before removing it from the pan and adding the toppings.

Lemon Glaze

2 cups powdered sugar

3 TBSP lemon juice

Whisk together until it is smooth and liquidy.

When the cake is completely cooled, drizzle some lemon glaze on top, then add some dabbles of cranberry chutney on top to make it festive.

This is a new creation. Let’s see what people think. I think it’s going to be a hit, but then what do I know. 🙂

Have a great day and make everyday great. The holidays are here. Enjoy all the festivities. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.

I don’t know why I am so fascinated with hawks and the birds of prey in general, but I am. I just love them and get so excited when I see them. Along with my American Kestrel Nature Walks – Kestrel Up High I also came across a beautiful Redtailed Hawk, also up very high in the tree. I think it was a male, but I am not sure. But he was watching everything and perusing the area, looking for prey. Once again, he was pretty far away, but I zoomed in and was able to get some good shots of him.

Have a great day and make everyday great. Be always on the lookout. You just never know what may come your way. There is always so much to see, if only we are open to seeing what there is to see, even if it is right in front of us. 🙂

We have actually been having cooler weather lately; weather that we are supposed to have for this time of year. I still have snow in my backyard from our last snow too. When it’s chilly outside, it chili time inside.

When Larry last had his smoker going, he smoked a lot of meat, like he always does. One of the meats he smoked was a beef round roast.

He did a good job with it too. The flavor was very good, but it was still a little tough, and needed to cook more. The best cure for that is to slow cook it more, and a great way to do that is to turn it into a batch of chili. I made a small pot of chili with some of it, and have the rest earmarked for something else, coming your way very soon. 🙂

Chili with Round Roast

I just made a small pot of chili, and it was just a simple chili. Chili is one of these recipes that has endless possibilities. Beans or no beans? To me, chili always has to have beans. That is the Southern way. I also like it thick. Some people like it thinner. When it comes to chili, everyone has their favorite recipe and the favorite way to make it.

2 1/2-3 lbs cooked round roast, cubed

1 can red beans

1 TBSP garlic

1/2 onion, diced

1/2 red bell pepper, diced

1/2 yellow bell pepper, diced

1 tsp red pepper flakes, or to taste

salt & pepper to taste

1 TBSP chili powder, or to taste

2 cups beef broth

1/3 cup flour, optional

I mixed in the beef, peppers, onions and beans. Then I mixed the beef broth, flour, garlic and seasonings together and incorporated it all with the beef, beans and peppers.

Then I just let it all cook at a medium-high temperature for about 3-4 hours and walked away while it did its thing. I just had a small bowl of chili with French fries in the side.

Larry decided he wanted chili nachos instead.

The chili warmed us up from the inside out, which helped to take the chill out of the air outside.

Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.

Yesterday I decided to change up my walking a bit, and visited nearby Metzger Farm. It’s just about 1 mile down the hill from where I live, and I like to mix up my walks. As soon as I arrived, I saw quite a few magpies and a bunny. But later into my walk, I saw a beautiful American Kestrel up high in a tree. She was a female. I could tell by her coloring. She was scanning the area for prey. I love the little Kestrels, along with all the other birds of prey. American Kestrels are small falcons.

At first, I was struggling to get good pictures of this little beauty, because she was so far away and so high up in the tree. I also had the bright sunlight to contend with. But once I found a good angle, I was able to get a few good shots of her.

Rice seems such a simple dish, yet it has a very, very long and illustrious history around the world. There are roughly 40,000 different varieties of rice found all over the world, but three main types or categories – short grain rice, like sticky rice used for sushi; medium grain rice, such as Arborio; and long grain rice, namely traditional white or brown rice, Jasmine and Basmati. There is also black rice and wild rice too.

Rice has been cultivated for 10’s of 1000’s of years. Different rice varieties are found all over the world, and are eaten by everyone. That being said, however, rice is one of Asia’s most important food crops. Roughly 800 million tons of rice are produced every year around the world, with 90-95% being produced in Asian countries, principally in China, India, Indonesia, and Bangladesh. It feeds over 3.5 billion people, almost half the world’s population, on a daily basis too.

The Folklores of Rice

Not only is rice a dietary staple for billions of people around the world, but it also has a lot of cultural significance and uses as well. For example, in Japanese culture, rice is used in offerings to the gods and in traditional dishes served at special occasions. But rice is an integral part of many cultures folklore, not just in Japan.

In Myanmar, the Kachins were sent forth from the center of the Earth with rice seeds and were directed to a country where life would be perfect and rice would grow well. In Bali, Lord Vishnu caused the Earth to give birth to rice and the God Indra taught people how to raise it. And in China rice is the gift of animals. Legend says after a disastrous flooding all plants had been destroyed and no food was available. One day a dog ran through the fields to the people with rice seeds hanging from his tail. The people planted the seeds, rice grew and hunger disappeared. All of these stories and many others have rice as their foundation and for generations people have believed these lores of rice. 

There are many origin myths and much folklore about rice, it is believed that a goddesses gave rice to humans and taught them how to grow it. Religious use of rice takes place in India, China, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Bali. In Asia, the rice spirit is female and often a mother figure.

According to their beliefs, the spirit of the paddy plant is said to be part of the Kinoingan – also known as the Bambaazon, who is revered as the creator, a source of life and existence. The rice spirit Bambaazon is therefore revered in the rice plant, the rice grain and the cooked rice.

The staple food for Asian nations is rice as it symbolises fertility and a good harvest. An empty rice jar is something that indicates barren and starving days. Hence, rice jars are always filled to the brim before the New Year commences.

Growing The Rice

With the exception of the type called upland rice, the plant is grown on submerged land in the coastal plains, tidal deltas, and river basins of tropical, semitropical, and temperate regions. The seeds are sown in prepared beds, and when the seedlings are 25 to 50 days old, they are transplanted to a field, or paddy, that has been enclosed by levees and submerged under 5 to 10 cm (2 to 4 inches) of water, remaining submerged during the growing season. In hilly areas rice farms are commonly terraced to keep the paddies flooded at various elevations. Successful rice production depends on adequate irrigation, including construction of dams and waterwheels, and on the quality of the soil. Long periods of sunshine are essential. Rice yields vary considerably, ranging from 700 to 4,000 kilograms per hectare (600 to 3,500 pounds per acre). Adequate irrigation, which means inundation of the fields to a depth of several inches during the greater part of the growing season, is a basic requirement for productive land use.

In Asia the paddy is cultivated in three main types of soil, including clays with a firm bottom within a few inches of the surface; silts and soft clays with soft bottoms becoming hard on drying; and peats and “mucks” containing peat, provided the depth of the peat is not excessive. Fields must be drained and dried before harvesting. When combine harvesters or binder threshers are employed, the grain must be dried to about 14 percent moisture so that no deterioration takes place in storage. When reaper binders are used, the crop is “shocked” in certain ways so that the grain is protected from rain.

Processing The Rice

The harvested rice kernel, known as paddy, or rough, rice, is enclosed by the hull, or husk. Milling usually removes both the hull and bran layers of the kernel, and a coating of glucose and talc is sometimes applied to give the kernel a glossy finish. Rice that is processed to remove only the husks, called brown rice, contains about 8 percent protein and small amounts of fats and is a source of thiamine, niacin, riboflavin, iron, and calcium. Rice that is milled to remove the bran as well is called white rice and is greatly diminished in nutrients. When white rice forms a major portion of the diet, there is a risk of beriberi, a disease resulting from a deficiency of thiamine and minerals. Parboiled white rice is specially processed before milling to retain most of the nutrients, and enriched rice has iron and B vitamins added to it.

The milling methods used in most of Asia remain fairly primitive, but large mills operate in Japan and some other areas. Hulling of the paddy is usually accomplished by pestle and mortar worked by hand, foot, or water power. Improvements are slowly taking place. The yield of milled rice is dependent on the size and shape of the grain, the degree of ripeness, and the extent of exposure to the sun. Some large mills, handling 500 to 1,000 tons of paddy daily, have specialized hulling plants with consequent smaller losses from broken grain. They generally employ modern milling techniques and rely on controlled drying plants instead of on sun drying.

Rice is also used to make different kinds of alcohol too. The Japanese sake is a prime example of rice alcohol. Other examples include soju, baiju and other distilled spirits, like rice wine or rice whisky. Its neutral taste and clear color make it an ideal base for these drinks. Additionally, rice alcohol can be utilized in the production of rice vinegar and even as a base for vodka.

As you can see, rice isn’t just a simple dish as we once thought. It is far more complicated and has many uses. Rice plays a very important role in many cultures too. There is much more to rice than just adding it to a dish as a side dish.

I hope you learned a little bit of food history and culture and enjoyed our little food lesson today. I know I did. Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.

We just bottled yet another batch of our very own wine. We are becoming quite the vintners these days. This is our 2nd batch of our own wine productions that we have done all by ourselves; no help from the experts at all.

This time, we made a Chardonnay. All the pros at InVintions A Toast to InVINtions!, Video #17 – INVINtions, A Creative Winery, The Hallowine Party at InVINtions complimented us on the nice color and clarity of the wine. We bought a kit that contained everything we needed and followed the instructions, but we’ll take credit for our nice wine. 🙂

The whole process from start to finish took about 6 weeks. And now, it is all done, and bottled, ready top be enjoyed. We have been recycling our bottles and then we wash and sanitize them with the cleaner and sanitizer we bought specifically for making wines.

We tend to name our wines after our fur babies. This one is yet another line of our “Big Dog Wines”, and we named it after Dorrie, our beautiful English Cream Golden. We called it “Dorrie’s Golden Chardonnay”.

Each batch makes about 28 bottles of wine.

We have tried a little, but not much. So far, so good though. It is a cool, crisp Chardonnay with hints of green apple and citrus flavors. We like it.

Our first wine production project was our “Midnight Malbec”, Midnight Malbec featuring Nicky, our black panther.

Have a great day and make everyday great, especially with a little wine along the way. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.