All posts filed under: holiday

Thanksgiving Dinner 2014: Top 5 Things I Learned in the Kitchen

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Well, Thanksgiving 2014 has come and gone and I hope your holiday was as wonderful as you’d hoped it would be. Mine was fantastic! We had a group of about 10 people for dinner and more friends came later on for drinks and dessert. I can’t even believe that it’s already December, but before we hurl ourselves full force into Christmas mode, I wanted to share 5 things that I learned from this year’s Thanksgiving dinner. 1. Turkey Technique 101. There’s a good way and there’s an even better way. I made two turkeys this year and both employed techniques that I hadn’t used before.  I had intended to make two small  12-14 pound turkeys using the Spatchcocked Turkey with Anise and Orange recipe on the November cover of Bon Appétit Magazine. But, being thrifty, I really tried to get a deal on those two turkeys without having to drive all over town. Turns out this is an impossibility. Yes, you can get great deals on turkeys, but you will have to drive all over town. There’s a long and boring story of …

Roasted Asparagus with Clementine Butter Sauce

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As I’m writing this, I just happened to glance outside and saw a hummingbird in the backyard!  Hummingbirds make me so happy!  It tells me, one, it’s Springtime and two, I have enough flowers blooming that they want to stop by for a quick sip!   This week I want to share a few recipes that really celebrate the fresh flavors of Spring.  Easter is this weekend, and what I love about that holiday is that it’s the perfect opportunity to showcase bright, spring vegetables!  Even though I buy asparagus throughout the year, this is the time when they taste the best and don’t break the bank!  The recipe is so easy and I think it will be perfect on the Easter table. The asparagus is roasted in the oven and then finished with a sauce that is both bright and fresh as well as richly decadent.  This is yet another one of those sauces that I have to keep myself from eating with a spoon!

How to Roast a Whole Chicken

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It’s a little bit odd that this is the first time I’ve written about roasted chicken. I make it when company comes over. I make it when the Husband comes home from a business trip (it’s his favorite)! I make it for New Year’s Day, then I make it again for Easter. Really, is there anything more satisfying than a perfectly roasted whole chicken?  Golden brown, crispy skin with a perfectly juicy interior; it is comfort food at it’s finest, yet it can be a perfectly elegant centerpiece of a “fancy” dinner. Seriously, bringing a well-roasted, plump chicken to the table is a beautiful thing. It’s like the Thanksgiving Turkey without all the anxiety! The Husband brags about this chicken to his friends and colleagues, and I admit, it makes me smile…a lot! There’s no sweeter feeling than when someone you love enjoys something you’ve made so much! I learned the method of cooking this chicken from a Barefoot Contessa episode many years ago and I’ve made it so many times I could make it …

Lucky New Year Black Eyed Peas

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In my family, there are only two holiday meals where the menu absolutely, positively can’t be futzed with: Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day.  With my mother doing less of the holiday cooking, Christmas has become somewhat free-form. The traditional dinner has evolved into brunch served family-style at my house. This year, the star was a lovely ham accompanied by piles and piles of bacon and served alongside a Tortilla Española.  To tell the truth, I think the star this year may have been the piles and piles of bacon–we went through 3 pounds that day!  This Christmas, I made my life a little easier by purchasing a HoneyBaked ham, and when the last slice of ham was eaten, I wrapped that lovely ham-bone and saved it for The Meal That Must Not Be Changed: New Year’s Day Dinner.  For as long as I remember, our family has eaten black-eyed peas and collard greens on New Year’s Day–those sweet and creamy peas cooked for hours with the Christmas ham-bone until the chunks of ham fall off the …

Saying Goodbye to 2013 and Photos from the Holidays

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Well, 2013 has officially come to an end.  Looking back, I think it was a pretty good year, filled with the laughter and company of good friends, eating some great food and enjoying time with our families and loved ones.  Best of all, new memories were made! The good folks at Google+ sent me this awesome look back at the photos I’ve taken and shared over the year!  It was fun to see all the things we planted, made and ate over the year! I wanted to share a few photos from our home.  Here’s a photo of the Christmas tree and that’s my cat Sophie having a snack! Christmas is one of our favorite holidays (somehow, I don’t think we’re alone in this) and I had a lot of fun decorating the kitchen this year.  Since I spend a lot of time in the kitchen anyway, it was nice to see it so festive all month long! The garland above the cabinets is one of my favorite things! I love this little topiary so …

Manchego Cheese and Olive Crackers with Creamy Radicchio Spread

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The second recipe that I tested for the Food52 website this week is this delicious little bite of some unexpected ingredients.  The original recipe is here.  This recipe took a little more effort than the kalamata olive tapenade crostinis, but I was excited to learn something new:  making homemade cheese crackers!  I had no idea that making homemade crackers would be so easy–it’s basically the same process as making a pastry crust–and it can easily be made in a food processor.  The cracker is then topped with a mixture of radicchio and cream cheese. Radicchio is a very assertive (ok, bitter) lettuce, but it becomes wonderfully mellow when mixed with the cream cheese.  What I also loved about this recipe is that it uses castelvetrano olives!  I may have mentioned my love for these olives before–bright green and buttery, they were a perfect compliment both inside the cheese cracker and in the garnish. Do yourself a favor and buy the olives already pitted–it will make the process that much easier.  I found an enormous jar …

Crostinis with Olive Tapenade and Burrata Cheese

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The holidays are upon us already!  Where has this month gone?  Heck, where has this year gone?  Even though I love the holiday season, it is really easy to become overwhelmed with all of the things that need to be done–the decorating, the shopping.  But, what I really love, is the partying!  I feel like I haven’t done much cooking since Thanksgiving, so in order to get myself back into the swing of things, I volunteered to test a couple of recipes for the website Food52.  Both recipes I tested were not only flavorful and inventive, but were very easy to put together and perfect to make or take to a holiday party.  The first one is a crostini topped with creamy burrata cheese and an olive tapenade.  The original recipe is here and since I was testing the recipe I made it exactly as written and didn’t make any changes.  I think it turned out perfectly and I really loved how well the briny tapenade paired with the creaminess of the cheese.  If you’ve never had …