Madison House Chef

Blogging My Refrigerator – New Year’s Eve Edition

We aren’t big New Year’s Eve partiers, but instead like to have a quiet evening at home with just our family and a few of our favorite appetizers and tapas.  We let our kids stay up until midnight and have a champagne toast to welcome the New Year.  This year, we may add to the repertoire and eat 12 grapes as the hour strikes.  This is a custom in Spain (where we will be traveling to this summer while my husband teaches at the University in Salamanca) and a fun way of our ongoing preparation for our trip.

Nevertheless, over the last hour or so we’ve put together a few family favorites including: mushroom and leeks in phyllo, stuffed mushrooms, mini crab cakes, tamales (a friend dropped these off earlier today), puff pastry pizza stars (the newcomer to the party), and the tried and true brie in phyllo.  These tasty tapas’ are taking up the majority of the space in the refrigerator and are ready for “the party.”

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010!

Spinach stuffed Chicken Roulades with Goat Cheese and Pine Nuts

 

Moist chicken with delicious stuffing offers both creaminess and nutiness. 

This recipe can be made ahead and baked within 24 hours or frozen.

 

 

Roasted Carrots and Cranberries

 

This recipe was originally from a Food Channel recipe that sounded quite delicious and would work well with the roladen I was serving. 

This was easy enough to modified for our personal taste.  For a little sweeter taste add sugar, for a little more tartness, add a little lemon.

 

 

Baked Ham (Alton Brown’s City Ham Recipe) with photos

 
The decision was made to have ham this year for the main course of Christmas dinner.  Now, you must understand that I’m not a big fan of ham.  I don’t mind pork as a rule, but ham and I have never been kin.  Maybe it’s the texture, maybe I’m just eaten too much greasy ham… I’m not truly certain except that I generally choose any other protein for the meal’s centerpiece.

However...

 

Tamales

This year I was fortunate enough to be part of a very traditional part of Christmas preparations here in the valley -- the making of tamales.  What a wonderful experience to be standing side by side with Mexicans and Anglos alike, preparing a delicious holiday food, all the while hearing stories of generations of families working together to craft the festive food of masa, lard, meat and beans.  Through the community work of preparing for the next days fiesta meal, I enjoyed entering a little deeper into the culture of a warm and welcoming community where family, faith, and respect are still highly valued and reflected in daily life.

Wreath Cookies (a flavored butter cookie)

Here’s a light and flaky cookie that shapes easily and tastes of butter and Sambuca (a star anise flavored, Italian liqueur).  The original recipe was for konjakskranser, which essentially translates from Norwegian as ‘cognac wreath,’ as found in the 1975 edition of Better Homes and Gardens HOMEMADE Cookies COOK BOOK (a cookbook passed down to my son from my mother.) 

 

 

Diablo Doritos, Pork Cheetos, and Habanero Doritos

 

 

Crunchy, salty, and … bland.  These Doritos (and other similar flavors) are all around down here and can be purchased at most any gas station or grocery.  They’re not nearly as good as many other flavors.  Even the “heat” factor was low.  One star only; it’s highly unlikely we’ll buy these again, but will stay with the pork flavor gourmet Chee-tos from Japan.  Other than being a little salty, they are very good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grilled Brook Trout

The very first time I ate trout was in Austria when traveling with my aunt.  I remember seeing this whole fish appear on my plate and wondering if I was going to embarrass myself by not eating much.  Turns out, the joke was on me.  Not only did I finish all of mine, but I remember looking around the table seeing if there was any place I could manage to retrieve one more fork full from. 

 

Micro-Burgers

My daughter, who generally prefers chicken or cheese based protein in her bento, requested that she have a little variety for a while.  She’s getting “chicken-ed out.”  After a brief discussion we agreed that the best item for her bento tomorrow would be a left over burger.  She’s had this before and really enjoyed the 2 inch diameter burgers that I prepared.  However, I couldn’t find the cutter that I ordinarily use and thus I used a silver cookie cutter that I generally use for cheese --- it’s a star.  The result was an immediate hit; fancy looking, star shaped, micro-burgers.

Of course it’s a rather fusion bento as she still requested having an onigiri.

This was definitely a photo-worthy trio of stars.

Holiday Party Nutrition Quiz: Which Should You Choose?

Party food strategy ...

from The ND Blog: Notes from the Nutritionista by Monica Reinagel, MS, LD/N by Monica Reinagel, M.S., LD/N

Mixed Nuts or Olives?The ND Choice: Olives

Olives are high in monounsaturated fats, which help lower cholesterol, and low in calories.  While nuts also contain healthy fats, they are much higher in calories and it can be hard to stop at just one small serving.

Soft or Hard Cheese?
The ND Choice: Soft Cheese    
Although not diet fare, soft cheeses tend to be a bit lower in calories and fat than hard cheeses. So opt for Brie or goat cheese over cheddar and gruyere--but still watch your portion sizes
Roast Beef or Ham?
The ND Choice: Roast Beef
Although roast beef can be slightly higher in calories, it has far less sodium than ham. Ham and other cured meats also contain nitrites, which you are better off without.

Champagne or a Cocktail?
The ND Choice: Champagne

Champagne clocks in at only 75 calories a glass, while cocktails can easily add up to hundreds of calories for just one drink. If you must have a cocktail, keep it simple with a vodka or gin martini to keep the calories down.

Cocoa or Eggnog?
The ND Choice: Cocoa
Almost anything is better than artery-clogging eggnog. Even if you make the cocoa with whole milk, it’s still the better option—but to minimize fat and calories, choose low-fat milk. Cocoa also contains flavonoids which may help prevent cancer and heart disease.

Pecan Pie or Pumpkin Pie?
The ND Choice: Pumpkin pie
Reach for a slice of pumpkin pie over pecan and you’ll save yourself over 200 calories per slice. Plus, pumpkin is packed with nutrients like beta-carotene, vitamins A, C, K, E, potassium, iron, and the list goes on.

via blog.nutritiondata.com

bon appetit’s Peppermint Meringue Cake with Chocolate Buttercream

How beautiful this looked on the cover … impressive .. fit for company.. a splendid dessert sure to please.  In planning the menu (desserts and wine) for an annual leadership thank you party I saw the cover photo and then the recipe (not difficult to follow) and thought it would be a nice change from my usual “mocha cream roll” (a yule log of sorts that has been a party staple for years).  I even showed a friend the magazine and she remarked how wonderful it would be to try it.  Sadly, I was disappointed; and though my guests were very complimentary, it did not live up to the standards that I set for the party. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peanut Butter Hershey Kiss Cookies

 

 

This Peanut Butter cookie, rolled in white sugar, and topped with a Hershey’s kiss is my son’s #1 favorite cookie.  For our annual Advent & Christmas party, which went very well last night, this was his request.  Needless to say, I made a big batch!

 

 

 

New York Style Cheese Cake

This evening we’re hosting our annual Advent – Christmas Party to thank the leadership that work with me throughout the year.  This year’s menu of desserts and red wine includes a new Peppermint Yule Log and of course, the annually requested New York Style Cheesecake with cherries.

This cheesecake is a long time staple in our family; it’s been in my recipe box for nearly 20 years and in my mother’s long before that.

 

Another (delicious) way to Eat Brussels Sprouts

The blog The Hungry Tiger is a treasure trove of recipes for vegetables, beans, and lentils that taste good, look good, and are good for you.  Always looking for a new way to sneak something nutritious into the main meal of the day, I enjoy perusing her blog.

Today as I was planning the menu for the week I once again searched around The Hungry Tiger to see what she was cooking up.  And behold, a brussels sprouts recipe that would work very well with the simple fish I’d be serving this evening. 

This is an amazing recipe that BOTH of my kids ate.  In fact, "the ‘lemony-ness’ of the sauce was very appealing" was spoken from the mouths of babes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lebkuchen

 

A traditional recipe from our family heritage and an opportunity to pass along a lesson in baking from grandmother to granddaughter. 

 

 

 

 

 

Thumbprint Cookies

My grandmother was an amazing baker and commonly had cookies for us to enjoy.  These thumb print cookies were among the variety that she regularly made.  I can remember her opening wax paper lined greeting card boxes (she sent many, many greeting cards throughout the year) to reveal these little gems.  I must admit however, that I didn’t eat them until I was a “grown-up”; it was the jelly that didn’t appeal to me.  However… as an adult their buttery cookie and sweet center are a delight.

 

“This should do it!”

This morning began with a plea to turn the heat in the house on, since it had gotten down to 68 degrees overnight.  I’m laughing at myself as I write this because 68 was well above the warmest temperature I would have turned the heat ‘up’ to when we lived in the Midwest.  However, living now 17 miles from the Mexican border in deep south Texas, 68 inside the house is COLD.  It was 46 degrees outside, and damp (it’s rained for 2 days…another big deal here in the valley), which is downright miserable.

Yesterday, day 2 of the steady rain, Ken and I stopped at our local coffee house (Ambrosia, on N 10th – a place owned by a guy name Nick – very, very good coffee) and needing something warm and comforting I had him make me a mocha.  It hit the spot.  Not only did I feel appreciably warmer inside, the “cozy” factor helped, too.  This morning, though the sun was shining again (Hooray!) it was still damp and definitely cold (yes, I know we’ve covered that, but really… it was!). Today is one of the early-out-the-door days (Ken teaches his first class at 7:45 on TU and TH this semester) and thus no time even to make coffee – due in part because I didn’t want to get out of bed… did I mention it was COLD! 

After dropping off the kids at their respective schools I scooted to the local Starbucks box store coffee house (sorry, Nick) to get a mocha (Ambrosia’s is better, yes).  I ordered a big one with an extra shot of espresso.  As I pulled up to the drive through window to pay, the cheerful barista chirped, “How are you today?”  I squinted at her, though she couldn’t see my eyes because I wasn’t about to take off my sunglasses.  My response, “Not awake yet.”  She looked at the side of my cup as she handed it to me… “This should do it!!”  

Thanks, chirpy barista girl … I’m waking up now… and I’m even starting to warm up.  (Did I mention it was really cold this morning…? LOL)

I couldn’t live without coffee.