I hope your holidays are filled with joy and delicious food. Here is the menu for our Christmas dinner-
Gourges from Ina Garten
Crusted Pumpkin Wedges with Sour Cream from Plenty: Vibrant Recipes from London's Ottolenghi
Garlic Butter Roasted Mushrooms from Smitten Kitchen
Fresh greens tossed in a red wine shallot vinaigrette
Salted Chocolate Tart (shown above) from Sunset Magazine
Bon Appetit all!
Happy New Year. I admit it, I was in bed Saturday night by 9 PM. I woke up very early on the 1st because I did have the pleasure of hosting a vegan brunch for some favorite girls. Brunch normally around here consists of various frittatas, coffee cakes and assorted non-vegan goods. So, I turned to Vegan Yum Yum for some inspiration...
Vegan Brunch Menu
Coffee, Tea, Champagne and Izze soda selection
Olive Assortment
Crunch: Red Bell, Crackers, Yellow and Green Beans
Chopped Salad Greens with Vinaigrette
Photo credit: Miss Martha Stewart
I hope your holidays are spent with much cheer. For Christmas brunch round here I plan to make the above Apple Crostada with a Cheddar Crust... (recipe HERE).
Here are a few bits and pieces:
This Seasonal Cleanse looks divine.
Loving the AudioBook: In A SunBurned Country by Bill Bryson (a fabulous book even if you are not moving to Australia-on your left)
Feel as though I need to purchase a bottle of Cassis and make myself a Kir.
Smitten with these handmade bags and aprons on Etsy: Seedling Design
Will be sifting thru all the recipes on this site over the week end: Sprouted Kitchen
Pixel's desk on any given day.... my children are very familiar with the term 'Mise en Place' in theory...
I love this project Pixel has been working on nonstop- her version of a polaroid camera:
These are a few of the photos that the camera takes:
The cookbook I spoke about so poorly on Monday has a winner recipe (sort of). The Hazelnut Liqueur turned out fantastic. Now, the ingredients did not yield as much as the recipe stated (in fact it yielded about half of what it should have-that is why I give it a sort of).
I doubled the recipe and a small bottle of liqueur was produced (maybe 2 cups total).... lovely to sip neat.
Thanks again to Design Mom for her gifting suggestions.... She has 6 kids so she is pretty expert in this department. Like most 9 year old girls the daughter adores journals, paper and pens. So this decoupaged notebook is a superb gift for a four year old to handle in the gift giving rhelm.
Anything involving cutting and glue is fun for Robert and so this gift was a delightful project to sit and do together. I am pretty sure she'll love it.
Hazelnut Liqueur from HomeMade by Yvette Van Bovan
Coarsely chop nuts in food processor. Place in a large jar (I used Mason jars) and cover with vodka and Cognac. Leave for 6 weeks...
Strain then through a sieve and then again through a coffee filter.
Leave to stand for 2 more days. Strain last of the residue through a coffee filter.
Heat water and sugars to majke a syrup. Combine cooled syrup and nut drink into a bottle.
Drink it up!
Brewing up a bit of liquor as a gift for the holidays..... I will follow up on the taste of this... my six weeks is almost up!
I appreciate the blog Soulemama and its many offerings of inspiration. For a gift making idea, that is where we turned. The recipe of peppermint lip balm is great fun, delicious and makes a perfect side gift to cookies... or hazelnut liquor (recipe coming soon).
I do also plan to make the peppermint barek in the post mentioned above... I am waiting on my peppermint extract.
Also, will be posting results tomorrow of the vow of silence and how that worked out in my not so silent home...
I hope your Thanksgiving week end was perfect. Ours was a festive event with heaps of traditional and non traditional food. The salt baked fish was..... fishy and sort of good? We had mixed reviews from the guests. Everyone agreed the process was fun and impressive:
No matter what, getting together to laugh and share some food with loved ones is always in order.
We have been busy here with this and that- lots of prep work (like stock making, cookie baking, gift making) and shopping for Thursday's ingredients- I think I have already been to 5 different groceries / specialty shops and I still have 1 or 2 on my to-do.
This year I have the pleasure of cooking and serving 15 people (some of them half sized).
Recently, everyone went veggie (but eats fish) around here (much to my surprise). So, for Thanksgiving I am going to make Salt Crusted Red Snapper as well as all the regular sides that go along with the tradition.
The kids are quite interested in the concept of baking an entire fish, "With its eyes??!!"
Unlike last year's traditional sides, I do plan to prepare some variations to keep it fresh you know.
I will post the complete menu shortly, I am still working out a couple details....but here is a sneek peak at the cocktail I will be serving to our guests as they enter: Pamplemousse ....many Thanks to Jora at Domestic Reflections for the tip.