A Make Ahead Meal For The Holidays
These recipes are great for a brunch or dinner! Do a day ahead and refrigerate. Great with a lettuce wedge. And pair with La Crema Pinot Gris for a complete dinner.
Enjoy Our Video For Sweet Spicy Baked Chicken
My friend and I are sharing this recipe for Sweet Spicy Baked Chicken. Gayle’s recipe is amazing and although we filmed this for the holidays this recipe is definitely a year around dish. It’s beautiful and delicious!
Truly Easy Yet Amazing!
Great Grandmother Kobilsek’s Melt In Your Mouth Pastry
Better known as Fanny by her friends, Ann’s Great-Grandmother Kobilsek catered parties along with raising two children in the 1920’s. Kolacky was a favorite during holidays … Extra was sent home with family at the end of their visit. Ann remembers her Great-Grandmother’s needlework, especially the stuffed animals she made and gave out with each visit. She even transformed her flapper wedding dress into an evening gown. If alive today I bet we would see her creations on Pinterest.
My first taste of this pastry came at Ann’s suggestion. (Ann is my Daughter-In-Law.) Kolacky is often called a cookie but it definitely has the taste and texture of pastry. It is light and rich. And did I say delicious!
This recipe appears time consuming. But actually the prep time is minimal. The dough does require refrigeration for two hours prior to rolling out the dough. This can be shortened by placing the dough in the freezer until it firms slightly. The dough rolls out easily with a well floured board. Zip. zip, it’s done!
Everyone enjoys a cookie warm from the oven. I make most cookies in small batches … Whipping them up in the last minute for a fresh dessert or snack. This dessert treat is definitely best when eaten within the 24-48 hours of baking. So, I have divided the original recipe in half. The half recipe will make two dozen 2″ pastries, 1/4″ thick.
Cheese Enchiladas and Beans
My first taste of enchilada came early. Estrada’s Spanish Kitchen was a family owned restaurant in Visalia established long before my parents were born. It was fine dining … Frequented for forty some odd years by our family.
The old Victorian house on Main Street was a business on the first floor and a family home on the second. It was our family’s favorite place to eat especially Christmas Eve … Forty six years in a row according to my brother. As a kid it seemed to take forever for the food to be served. I amused myself when young … picking the enormous wax covered wine bottle that was providing more temptation than candle light … seeing coins embedded in the wax … digging. Yep, I was disciplined. My brother, more self disciplined, just explored the upstairs bathroom, the only one available. But I bet he was really looking for Susie.
I have tried to recreate the tastes of Estrada’s dishes. (Estrada’s taste alike here) A friend married into this restaurant family not too long ago, and had mentioned the recipes were definitely a family secret. Yes, I asked. He said, I could give you the recipes but then I would have to kill you. Of course he was kidding! Do I have to even say that? There were about a half dozen of these Estrada’s restaurants throughout California owned by the same family. Only one now exists … Daly City. (Closed Feb 3rd, 2019)
In my teens, mother, every few months, would form an assembly line of hot vegetable oil, heated canned enchilada sauce, corn tortillas, cheese and onion. She and I would make two dozen enchiladas, some to be eaten … some to be frozen. We used Velveeta cheese … Considered a healthy alternative to cheese in those days.
(For this dish, I will be using a quick sauce recipe I picked up from a former neighbor about 40 years ago. I was shocked at the time to find enchilada sauce got the red color from peppers not tomatoes. Labeling was yet to reach today’s sophistication.)
Never Fails To Surprise And To Please
This Decorated Cookie Cakes recipe has oatmeal but these are not the typical oatmeal cookies with spices. This cookie is iced and layered and iced. It has a deliciously surprising flavor, vanilla with a hint of almond. No almond meal or nuts. I acquired this recipe, given to me years ago, and have never come across anything like it since.
The cookies are decorated and it is time to let you in on the secret.
A Breakfast Bar Or Cookie
Packed with goodness! This was my choice for an energy bar in the 60’s, BUT you will have to eat two to get the calorie count of most energy bars of today. I was hooked the first time I made this Date Nut Bar!
Have you heard of Mineral King? Beautiful place chosen by Disney to develop a resort in 1965. This resort project fell through. Kathryn and I planned a day hike in Mineral King about this time. This bar never tasted so good.
A Comfort On A Cold Gray Day
Sausage And Navy Bean Soup
It’s rainy and cold this morning. I had planned to share a cookie recipe today … a breakfast cookie! But this can wait until tomorrow. I am going to put together a rich soup instead. And because it is last minute I won’t be soaking the beans overnight. The soup is a bit Italian. What a comfort it will be! Pair this with a country bread and it’s a complete meal. If you like add a small glass of red table wine.
A Visit To Vermont
Sour Cream Pancakes With Blueberry Maple Syrup
Vermont always comes to mind this time of year. If it isn’t the taste of their maple syrup it’s the picturesque view of their snow covered villages or ski slopes in mind’s eye that take me there. The love of this country was conveyed to me many times by a friend who skied these beautiful snow covered slopes in the 60’s … a magical time to say the least. Ella Fitzgerald, can’t forget her Moonlight In Vermont. She gets me there too.
Today I’ve made moist pancakes that can be eaten without syrup. Yep, my best friend, Marg, (Marg’s excuse-her father was a dentist) and my daughter prefer them that way! But for those who want to imagine themselves snowbound in a Vermont cabin overlooking fields of glistening snow I have a syrup for you. OK, you can tell I live in sunny California!
A Recipe Change Up
Chicken and Dumplings My Style
My mother is from Arkansas. In 1939 she travelled to her new home in California. She brought with her a southern style of cooking which included recipes for fried chicken, biscuits and gravy, fried potatoes, and chicken and dumplings. Vegetables and fruits were mainly canned to preserve. This seems to be in vogue again today!
As a child I had a very difficult time eating chicken. I was generously given the drumstick … Every child’s favorite it seemed. But I could see every vessel and tendon … Even more so with stewed chicken and dumplings. The taste was delicious but…. I was being a kid!
What I have done here is create more of a shepherd’s pie with chicken. Rather than placing the biscuits or dumplings, mother used the same recipe for both, into the chicken dish I have included them separately. I loved my mother’s biscuits! She liked to make them thinner than most would, pressing the dough thin before cutting. This created a biscuit that was less cakie. If baking biscuits separately not as a topper, she would dip each in bacon drippings, lightly coating both sides before placing into a baking dish and popping into the oven. Yep! Still love this taste today. But for those who are not bacon fans butter works.
Not Just a Leftovers Dish
Turkey, Sausage and Rice Dish
Here is a dish I put together with leftover Thanksgiving turkey. It received a 9 out of 10 rating from family … 10 being equivalent to the Thanksgiving turkey meal. I say that is a pretty good rating! Wouldn’t you?!