Soul Food

Happy Thanksgiving! This has to be my favorite holiday of the year, because it is the only one that lends itself to lots of cooking and eating! I had a blast this Thanksgiving - the company was quaint and the food was hearty. I cooked with my roommate again this year, and the menu was as follows:

A delicious, tender turkey and giblet gravy(roomie)
Cornbread Dressing (me)
Sweet Potato Souffle' (me)
Macaroni and Cheese (roomie)
Pound Cake (me)
Mixed Greens Salad (guest)
Homemade Cranberry Sauce (me)
Potato Rolls (store)
Sweet Potato Pie (guest)
Mixed Fruit Cheesecake (guest)
Holiday Glazed Nuts
countless bottles of wine and cider

Admittedly, whole meats and anything pasta are a weakness for me. For some reason, I am horrible at boiling pasta! I'm not a fan of macaroni and cheese, and anything I don't eat, I generally don't make. Must be a cook's thing, LOL. Anywho, I've decided to share my recipe for my Holiday Glazed Nuts, which I took from another recipe and modified. They were delicious, and keep well for post-Thanksgiving snacking.

Holiday Glazed Nuts

2 cups of walnuts
1 egg white
3/4 cup of brown sugar
3 tbs of red wine (*the wine cooks away, but apple cider may be substituted)
dash of cinnamon
dash of nutmeg
dash of allspice
dash of ground cloves
handful of white granulated sugar

Whisk the egg white in a bowl until frothy. Stir in brown sugar, wine, and spices. Toss in nuts to coat. Spread out nuts on a lightly greased baking pan, and sprinkle with white granulated sugar. Bake for 30-35 min, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking and burning. Once removed from the oven, store in an airtight container.

*spiced wine may be used also, in which case you can omit most of the spices.

Enjoy and hope you had a great Thanksgiving!

Ok, so I've decided to do a recipe of the month. This will be a way for me to share some of my favorite recipes and get some feedback on them. So for this month:

Slammin' Spinach Dip

1 package of frozen chopped spinach
1 package of shredded Parmesan cheese
1 cup of mayonnaise

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. Transfer to an oven-safe dish and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the cheese on the edges is slightly brown. Serve immediately.

Serves 4

This is a favorite among my friends and family. Everyone thinks it something gourmet and advanced. It's simple and absolutely delicious!

Sorry it's been so long! I've been cooking away, nonetheless. Unfortunately, I haven't been taking pictures of some of the things I've been making, but that will change!

Last night, I realized that I had some apples in my fridge that were nearing The End. I perused my cookbook collection to find the perfect apple-something to make. I ended up making turkey burgers and drinking wine with my roomie, so that cooking adventure was postponed until this morning. I made Apple Cinnamon pancakes, which turned out pretty good.
















Sorry, I didn't think to take a pic until after I'd eaten the pretty ones. But they were yummy. I still have two left, and I have muffins on the brain. My new challenge is to perfect the Muffin. I'll keep you posted on that.

I've sold a few of my cakes and other goodies, so my side hustle is beginning to get some focus time in my life. Thanksgiving is fast approaching, and my menu for this year will be posted as well.

There has been a pound cake recipe in my family for quite awhile. It s the best pound cake I have ever tasted. My mom swears it was her recipe first and she used to make it when I was little...but I only remember my aunt making it in my later years. I took on the recipe recently, and tweaked a bit to make it my own. It turned out pretty good.

The secret to a good pound cake is cream cheese. And I added a little Amaretto to the already delectable glaze that goes on top. I made three of them, and sent two of them off to a few potential clients. ;o) Here is a pic of the end result...

















I got great feedback from the ones I sent off, and the one I kept wasn't half bad either! My next adventure will be creating my own recipe for white chocolate brownies. I am a white chocolate fanatic, and a brownie fanatic, so we'll see how it goes when you mesh the two. Stayt tuned...

So I came up with a new kind of dessert bar. I'm calling them Sandie Bars. They put me in the mind of Pecan Sandies, but they are in soft bar form. I put pecans and chocolate and caramel chips in them. They were scrumptious! I think the next time I make them, I'll use caramel syrup to swirl in them, and maybe some Heath bar bits. Sorry, I would've taken pictures, but they were gone too fast! (I think I might have eaten most of them!)

So I have been making this chocolate cake - you know I like to make things two and three times to make sure it is something I can say that I make well, because there is a such thing as beginner's luck when it comes to baking and cooking. Anyway, I made this cake, and it turned out really well. I combined some concepts from a few different recipes, and I came up with a recipe for my Finer Woman Chocolate Cake (name after an event I first made it for). It is a moist chocolate cake with an Oreo cookie and cream cheese filling and frosting.

It tastes really good, but it is not aesthetically pleasing, and that bothers me. Because of the mixing, the icing and filling end up being a kind of a dark shade of gray, and the cake is a light brown, because the recipe calls for pressed cocoa.

I may be able to substitute baking chocolate for the cocoa to come out with a darker result, so we'll see. But what can I do about the icing and filling? It really is a delicioius cake, but I would love for it to look as good as it tastes. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know...

I'm a little late with this, but a couple of weeks ago I hosted a V-Day Party. The theme: An Aphrodisicial Affair. I prepared a three-course meal, complete with appetizers and cocktails. This was the menu:

Cocktail Hour - homemade empanadas (pics below), spinach dip, fresh grapes and strawberries, and Rose Sangria. I also had a pitcher of water with cucumber slices and mint to give it a refreshing flavor.

Salad - Spring greens with dried cranberries, walnuts, parmesan cheese, with a Raspberry Walnut Vinaigrette. Served with French bread.

Dinner - Sauteed spinach, Roasted Rosemary Potatoes, Mozzarella-stuffed roasted chicken with rosemary, basil, and pinenuts, and Sausages in grape sauce.

Dessert - Toasted Almond Cheesecake and White Chocolate Bread Pudding with Amaretto Cream Sauce.

The recurring theme was that all the foods I served had one or more ingredients that are considered to be an aphrodisiac. Before dessert, we all talked and listened to music - I had loads of fun hosting this shindig. Unfortunately, I was so busy being the hostess with the mostess, I completely forgot to take pictures of everything! I did manage to remember before all of the leftovers were gone, so below are pics of the cheesecake, potatoes, bread pudding, and empanadas.