All Activity

Last Christmas Eve was the first annual Mimi & Murphy making cookies for Santa event. We will repeat that, and have a simple gumbo for Christmas Eve dinner. We’ll be having Christmas dinner at son & DIL’s house, along with her parents, sisters, and their families. Everyone brings something, and mac and cheese and cookies were requested. I will happily comply. My DIL’s father is Lebanese and he will be making a couple of dishes that I look forward to trying. I’ll probably also bring a low carb faux wild rice pilaf, using hemp hearts in place of wild rice. It consists of diced mushrooms, chopped pecans, diced onions and red bell pepper, garlic, and hemp seed hearts. DIL and her mom and sisters enjoyed it last time I made some. And it ends up looking like this: The cookie tray will include lemon crinkles, dark chocolate dipped peanut butter, dark chocolate and cranberry oatmeal cookies*, salted vanilla toffee cookies, and the ubiquitous (but delicious) chocolate chip (with flaky salt). I’m not good at making pretty cookies, but I can make some that taste really good! *Might be replaced with iced gingerbread oatmeal cookies.

OMG, twice on one night!

This is a quick and easy "ladie's lunch." I usually serve it with an orange and arugula salad. Love the frozen puff pastry. I have made it from scractch a couple of times, but it's one of those things (like croissants) that just doesn't seem worth the trouble so I always keep a package in the fridge and a package in the freezer.https://vikalinka.com/ham-cheese-puffs-asparagus/

Yes, @JeanneCake, all pre-cooked. Thanks.

Indeed, it's a new one to me also! After I looked it up, I asked Mr. Google whether it equates to "zhuzh". Blew the AI's mind. But I gather they have similar meanings.

Do you have space indoors? Growing chillies indoors is really easy and contrary to what a lot of people on the internet say, you don't need hot weather to grow chillies - what dictates their heat level is genetics and ample light. I use a couple LED grow lights and my chillies taste just like I was there. I actually just cut down my rawit plant today as we're planning to go away in a few days and it was getting unwieldly large. I have probably harvested at least a full gallon ziplock bag full of those little pieces of plump, juicy dynamite, now happily IQF'd in my freezer. If you have the space and desire, let me know - I'd be happy to send you a few seeds of the rawit and/or the keriting chillies - send me a PM if interested. They are the most commonly used in Indonesia/Malaysia. Quite a few sambals are "fried" like that. Dabu dabu from North Sulawesi and sambal matah from Bali are both made that way. What's interesting is that a common Javanese sambal - sambal terasi (means shrimp paste) - the ingredients are pretty much exactly the same as the sambal ulek (I dont' think it uses palm sugar though, just a bit of white sugar to balance), except it is a fried sambal and it is ground very fine (like in a blender or really worked over by hand in the cobek).

@Norm Matthews, what a great story - from start to finish. Thanks for posting about the cookbook, and the backstory.

Last month, I was reading the newspaper and it had an article about Pyet DeSpain. I know her. We aren't close friends and the last time I saw her was at my son's wedding. He was getting married to Pyet's half sister. At the time she had an office job for a local car dealer. I learned from the article that she had gone to culinary school, moved to LA and was making meals for delivery to clients when she decided to start creating meals based on her background. She and her mother and grandmother are members of the Potawatomi tribe and her father and his Mexican family lives in Kansas City She grew up in both cultures. Her food attracted some attention in Los Angles and was asked to be a contestant on Gordon Ramsay's Next Level Chef She was the winner of Season One. She has a cooking show on PBS. This was all news to me. I preordered her cookbook and after it came, had it signed it at a book signing event here in Kansas City. This is the first cook book that I will have read from cover to cover and am acquiring items for her recipes that are not often found or grocery store shelves, like sumac and juniper berries. I remember sumac trees all along an area where I used to take walks in Junction City and made tea with them once in a while but now have a chance to learn how to put them to greater use. Same for juniper berries. I have a tree in my backyard that has a gazillion of those blue seeds on it. She has some sauces that have been modified to use as BBQ sauces and I do a lot of BBQ in my smoker and have used fruit flavors in my sauces and her sauces also use fruit flavors. I have inclded another picture of my son's wedding day taken with is bride and her siblings. Pyet is on the left.

Schmick....a brand new word for me. Went straight to Mr. Google for information. Thanks @sartoric. Always like to learn something new.

That is interesting, using the cobek (which I do not have) and hot oil to "fry" the sauce. Lucky you, having home-grown chiles. I miss our vegetable garden, which is now buried underneath the new sun room. I was happy with the flavor and heat level, but I'll use Holland chiles next time if they are available. Thank you, I was hoping to get your perspective on the meal. And now I know that kuning means yellow.

I have some that are hand embroidered-and one at least that is beaded (which is weird--I don't wanna blow my nose into a beaded area lol).

I wouldn't prebake/par bake at all; is the filling cooked at all before you put it in the tin?

The hankies that I inherited were what my mother had inherited from her mother and aunt; they had been professionally laundered and ironed (?!), and tied into stacks with lavender ribbon. As I said, I use them. Several are in rotation for the above-referenced winter activities; I have one ribboned stack left intact. I got anxious once, and researched the New Hankies. They seem wonderful, are larger, and are priced for preciousness. I really do believe that this last stack of my grandma's is gonna get me through the duration.

Interesting - most of the recipes/videos I've seen of people in Indonesia making sambal ulek (aka ulekan aka cobekan), the chilli paste is made in the Indonesian mortar (cobek) and rather than being a fried sambal, it's typically spread in a thin layer across the cobek (which is almost flat, rather than deep like a Thai mortar) and smoking hot oil is poured over the paste and then mixed through thoroughly. I just made a batch a couple weeks ago using some of my home grown cabe keriting (curly chillies) and cabe rawit (often translated as Thai chillies, but they're actually different - more plump with a fruitier flavor, but just as spicy). I used a lot more rawit than normal and jeez that stuff is spicy! But really tasty. Keeps really well in the freezer and when defrosted is just about impossible to tell the difference. Most recipes/videos I've seen use only the rawit - I added the keriting to make it less spicy and it was crazy hot even still. So maybe using those Fresno chillies rather than the Holland spur chillies wasn't so far off! But everything looks great! I find it funny that the book calls the pickles "acar kuning" - (kuning meaning yellow). I've only seen it called acar without any other descriptor - it's always got turmeric in it!

Dinner from 'Cradle of Flavor' Malaccan beef and vegetable stew (Semur daging lembu): Basically a European stew with Malaysian flavors like shallot paste, star anise, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon stick, black soy sauce, and rice vinegar. Red onion, carrots, sliced green beans (sub for peas), and potatoes cooked separately and added just before serving. Jasmine rice to go with. Very popular, no leftovers Sweet-sour cucumber and carrot pickle with turmeric (Acar kuning): Salt matchsticks of cucumber and carrot with sliced shallots and red Fresno peppers and let sit for a couple of hours. Meanwhile make a flavoring paste of shallots, garlic, macadamia nuts (sub for candlenuts), ginger, dried red chiles, and turmeric. Saute the paste and simmer with rice vinegar and sugar. Rinse and dry the quick-pickled vegetables and mix with the sauce. First time making this but it won't be the last. Javanese sambal (sambal bajak / ulek): Shallots, garlic, red Fresno peppers, palm sugar, and a fried disc of dried shrimp paste, all blended "to the consistency of cooked oatmeal." Fry until reduced, darkened, and the oil begins to separate. Good stuff, will make again. I owe Fresno peppers an apology. International market usually carries red Holland chiles, and I was very disappointed to find them out of stock. I reluctantly substituted Fresno chiles, which are often bland. Not this batch!

Making up some pot pies, but not the usual crust. I'm thinking of cutting a piece of commercial puff pastry (starts frozen) and draping it over the top of the pie. No inner pastry. The contents will be cooked lamb and cooked beans and some cooked vegetables. Do I pre-bake the pie for some little time before freezing it? And method?

Not a snowflakes chance in hell of a white Christmas here, forecast is for 33°C. It will just be “he who must be fed” and me this year, our friends are all going away. On Christmas Eve I think we’ll have lobster tails with garlic butter and a schmicked up potato salad. There might be a mango margarita on Chrissy morning, followed by a lunch of confit duck leg with roasted carrots salad and something green. A neighbour at our old place gave me some Davidson Plum preserve which I will trick into being a sauce. My brother recently visited from Madrid and brought fruit and nut filled marzipan. That’s dessert.

Good friends of ours who live aboout 15 minutes away called this morning and said "hey - I know it's late notice but we finally got our tree up and we're going to load up the fireplace with logs - want to come over for a cocktail or coffee tonight?" I said sure, what can I bring? She said "oh, just a it of your lovely baking would be grand." Prolem is, I don't have any "lovely" baking. I've been baking for bake sales and a quadruple batch of biscotti for my daughter's ER team. I do however, almost have a package of puff pastry at the ready this time of year so within about 20 minutes of receiving the invitation, I had two trays of palmiers in the oven. So, so simple but people are always impressed. I just made the standard sugar one, but can also whip up savoury ones in a tick with sun-dried tomatoes and olive tapenade. Life saver at this time of year! All were packaged up before I thought of taking a picture, but you know what they look like. I use Ina's recipe.

Some upcoming 2026 releases: The Nonalcoholic Bar: Classic and Creative Cocktails for Everyone (deBary) January The Bartender's Collection: Good drinking in more than 300 recipes (Madrusan) April Dryads: Spirits of the Trees (Hoefling) rescheduled to May The Classic Cocktail Sessions: A Bartender's New-Fashioned Approach to the World's Most Beloved Recipes (Maloney, Janzen) June

It was Saturday night with the Carolines. Here is some Gorgonzola with pear, vintage cheddar, pickles and a spicy garlic jalapeno dip. With a Moscow mule to wash it all down.

Gee those ham and beans look delicious 🤤

I have been cooking Christmas cookies all day and part of yesterday too. Dinner was a humble Southern comfort food that mom used to make whenever we had a leftover ham bone. Instead of Navy beans, though, I used Mayocoba beans. I had not seen them on shelves for quite a while but remembered how good they are and decided to use them with the ham bone i had in the freezer. The cookies were some brownies made in a skillet, some spicy oatmeal cookies that nearly everyone would not know they were oatmeal cookies and some eggnog flavored cookies.

Typical breakfast for us although bacon is involved only about twice a month. This breakfast was cooked by my husband.

@Shelby I have been AWOL from here for a while and I thought I just posted a reply here but I don't see it now. I'll try again. I did probably did say that about Kansas sunsets. I remember saying somewhere a while back that God didn't put mountains in Kansas because He knew they"d block the view (of our Sunsets) )

@Shelby I have been AWOL from this site for a few days and didn't see your quote until now. I probably did say that about Kansas sunsets. I know I once said" God didn't put mountains here because He knew it they would block the view of our sunsets