SAH mom, dear husband, dear daughter, dear twin sons, floppy eared fur-baby. Love to teach, garden, cook, sew and craft, occasional computer geek for children!!
Cranberry and brie filo crackers. These are not your ordinary Christmas crackers. Packed with the heavenly combo of cranberries and brie, these edible crackers are guaranteed to be the showstopper on your entertaining table. Moreover, the flaked almonds add textural interest to the filo parcels. Deliciously perfect way to celebrate the holiday season!
LET’S MAKE THESE FESTIVE CHRISTMAS CRACKERS
Fall’s finest flavors combine in these delicious Pumpkin Cranberry Crackers, which make for a tasty treat no matter the season. Pack on the flavor… just not the pounds!
These are a copycat of Gourmet Crackers sold at my local shops which are so expensive to buy! For 1/5th of the price to buy, these are simple to make and they taste much better (having done side by side taste testing!). They last for at least a month in an airtight container, or you can keep the loaf in the freezer then slice and bake when desired. They taste sweet / savoury and are perfect with cheese. Customisable!
The wonderfulness of regular monkey bread, but with a citrus/vanilla twist. To die for! This recipe is super quick and easy, and easy clean-up makes it great for a brunch with company. Make this in a Bundt Pan, Loaf Pan or make "Monkey Muffins" by putting into Muffin Tins (or individual oven proof cardboard muffin cups for seasonal novelty).
If you really wanted to try this hack and were missing the port—say you were in need of an impressive, very-last-minute dinner party dessert, or something else to throw on your cheese plate or to pep up your steak or soup or salad (or you know, your fancy, well-priced quarterly balsamic delivery from Food52 had run out)—you absolutely could. You could just leave the port out, or splash in a fruity red wine, or honey, or cherry juice and tweak the flavor and consistency as you like. Or you could just surrender as I did, and commit this formula to memory, knowing that it will be your new tool to have this elixir anytime, near instantly. Adapted slightly from Kitchen Hacks: How Clever Cooks Get Things Done (Cook's Illustrated, 2015).
These macaroons are ultra-coconut-y and pleasingly chewy, with just the right amount of sweetness. I dipped a few of the macaroons in chocolate for a little extra pizazz.
One of the more popular dishes we served at the Bombay Café was murghi shorba. Like any good chicken soup, it is a wonderful comfort for those ailing with a cold—and the addition of chiles certainly clears your sinuses! Enjoy this wonderful Indian spiced chicken soup recipe.
Carne de vinha d’alhos, a Portuguese dish made with pork, was the basis of the now famous vindaloo served in Indian restaurants. Although many make it with lamb, chicken, or shrimp, I prefer the original recipe with pork, redolent of tamarind, vinegar, and black pepper. Vindaloo is famed for being extremely spicy; adjust the amount of chile, both green and red, to your taste.
The spicy marinade gives these simply prepared shrimp considerable zing. To serve them as an appetizer, choose small shrimp because they are easier to eat, and pass them with wooden picks. As a main dish for dinner, larger shrimp work well, served with rice and vegetables. Pairing suggestion: Pinot Blanc from Alsace.
Chicken biryani is a dish for celebration. If you need to feed a crowd or host a dinner party, choose this biryani which will excite your guests with the aromas of the dish made in a slow cooker. The biryani is made with par-cooked rice and marinated chicken before they go into the slow cooker. The traditional method for cooking biryanis includes covering a large brazier with dough to trap the heat. In this recipe, the slow cooker is sealed with foil to produce a similar steamed effect.
Just because a meal is made in a slow cooker doesn’t mean there won’t be any prep. Those sorts of recipes exist and are handy when you need a weeknight meal, but because Neela developed these recipes in a manner that preserves the nuanced flavors of Indian food, layering of ingredients and some cooking in stages is necessary. The process of blooming spices is used to create a base of flavor. The rice is par-cooked, and the chicken is marinated for 30 minutes all before they go into the slow cooker.
This pasta dish is modeled on the spaghetti al pesto di limone that Giovanna Aceto made for us on her family’s farm in Amalfi, Italy. The lemons commonly available in the U.S. are more acidic than Amalfi’s lemons, so to make a lemon pesto that approximates the original, we use a little sugar to temper the flavor. For extra citrus complexity, we add lemon zest to the pasta cooking water; the oils from the zest lightly perfume the spaghetti, reinforcing the lemony notes of the pesto.
Don’t forget to remove the lemon zest from the boiling water before dropping in the pasta. If left in as the spaghetti cooks, the zest may turn the water bitter, and the strips are a nuisance to remove from the strands of cooked noodles.
Don’t begin making the cheesecake until the cheeses, eggs and cream are at room temperature. If the ingredients are cold, they won’t mix easily and the batter may wind up lumpy. However, it’s easiest to remove the rind from the soft, buttery Saint André cheese while it’s cold, so do the trimming before allowing it to come to room temperature.
This easy Mexican Rice recipe is SO simple you’ll want to make it for all of your Mexican and Tex-Mex dishes! You can serve this perfect fluffy Mexican Rice (or Spanish Rice) as a side dish for all your Mexican meals!
One of my holiday traditions is to make a Yule Log. Every year they are a little different and I play with the flavors. This year I went with a cherry and ricotta filling rolled into a cocoa sponge and covered with espresso buttercream. It is delicious. Sugaring cherries for the decor and making meringue mushrooms make this rolled cake a show-stopper. This classic French dessert is elegant and beautiful, and a fun way to serve cake at Christmas. The Yule Log look adds whimsy and the flavors and decorations can be tailored to your liking. Make some extra cherries to serve on the side, since they are super easy, delicious and gorgeous on the table.
Every year for Hanukkah I make jelly doughnuts (Sufganiyot). They are fried in oil, which is the most significant ingredient of the holiday. This year I made an orange, olive oil, and poppyseed mini bundt cakes instead. Although they are baked instead of fried, they still have the oil in the batter. I finished them with a dark chocolate glaze and a bit of gold to give a nod to the gelt found on many Hanukkah tables. I used marmalade in these mini bundt cakes because it is one of my favorites, but feel free to change up the flavors to suit your taste.
This spicy spinach artichoke dip is my family’s favorite recipe I make every Christmas Eve to eat while we decorate our tree. It is easy and so satisfying. My boys like it SPICY but you can turn that up or down to suit your taste. We also make it for the Super Bowl and pretty much every other gathering, it’s that good!