Stuffed Mushrooms and Sausage and Quinoa Stuffed peppers.

These stuffed mushrooms are a traditional accompaniment to our Christmas Eve meal but they make a great appetizer. 

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• 1 lbs sage sausage
• 1 package cream cheese (8oz)
• 1 bunch green onions
• 1-2 lbs button mushrooms

First, wash the mushrooms and remove the stems. Keep the whole mushroom to the side and mince the stems and the green onion. Cook up the sausage in a pan and add in the cream cheese and minced onion and mushroom stem and stir as the cream cheese melts everything together. Stuff the mushroom caps with the filling and bake at 350 for 15-20 minute. 

Alternative: 

Sausage and quinoa stuffed peppers

Get fewer mushrooms and dice them all up for the filling. Cook some quinoa and add it to the filling just after the cream cheese melts. Then either slice some peppers in half and remove the seeds or cut the top off and remove the seeds and ribs from the inside. Pre-bake the peppers at 350 for about 5-7 minutes and then stuff them with the filling and bake another 10 minutes  

Pork and apples in a ginger cream sauce

Pork

• 4 country style pork ribs
• 2 tbs buttermilk 
• 1 cup bread crumbs
• 2 tsp dried thyme
• salt and pepper
• butter

Sauce:

• 1 cup apple juice that has chilled overnight with pieces of ginger root in it-remove the ginger root
• 1 tbs grated ginger
• 1 tsp stone ground mustard
• juice of 1 orange
• 1 apple-diced
• 1/4 cup cream

Start by simmering all the ingredients except the cream over medium heat in a small saucepan. Then begin working on breading the pork. Start by mixing the breadcrumbs, thyme, salt and pepper. Then coat the pork in buttermilk and dredge it in the brad crumb mixture. Melt some butter in a pan over medium heat and when it starts to sizzle, add the breaded pork. Sear on each side then reduce the heat a bit and put a lid on. Cook till the pork is done (about 5-7 minutes). 

The sauce should have reduced my at least half by now. Make sure it doesn't go much past this. Add in the cream and make sure it is heated through.  

Serve over rice or quinoa with the sauce, meat, and a green vegetable like roasted asparagus or steamed green beans. 

Trifle

Growing up, we always spent Christmas Eve with my dad’s family and that night we would feast and when the grown-ups were finally done eating we got to open presents. We got one from a cousin and one from the grandparents. After a frantic clean up the family would scatter to their respective homes for Christmas morning. We spent that with my mom’s mom. This month I will be sharing recipes from our traditional Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner meals.

First up: Trifle

This is a dish we would have on Christmas Eve. It was one of my mom’s contributions to the feast. She spent a significant chunk of her childhood visiting her grandparents in England and this is her version of English Trifle.

·         1 angel food cake

·         1 large package red jello

·         1 large can sliced peaches

·         1 large package vanilla pudding-prepared

·         1 tub whipped topping

The night before, break the angel food cake into chunks and let it sit overnight to get stale. In the morning, prepare the jello according to directions. When it is about half set, pour it over the angel food cake and put it back in the fridge to finish setting.

Then place the sliced peaches on top,

cover with pudding

then top with whipped cream. Yumm.

Sweet Potato Puree with bacon

• 6 sweet potatoes or yams-cubed
• water
• salt and pepper
• 6 tbs maple syrup
• 3/4 cup of  orange juice
• 1 stick of Butter
• 1/2 cup of cream
• one package of bacon-cut into small chunks and cooked till crispy

Place the sweet potato (or yam) cubes in seasoned water (salt and pepper) with just enough water to cover the pieces. Add in the maple syrup. Simmer over medium heat until the potatoes are soft and the water has reduced. Then drain the potatoes but reserve the liquid. Put the potatoes, butter, and cream in a blender or food processor and blend till smooth. If it ends up a little thicker than you like, add in some of the reserved liquid. Pour this mixture into a baking dish and top with the crispy bacon. To make this more like your traditional Thanksgiving sweet potato dish, you can top with marshmallows and bake at 350 till the marshmallows puff up and brown a bit on top.


The salt from the bacon works really well with the sweet from the potato cooked with that little bit of syrup. 

If you want to make it more of a soup to make into a main dish, add more of the reserved liquid or cream in and serve with rolls or crackers. 

Cranberry Apple Salad-AKA the Pink Stuff

• 5-6  granny smith apples-grated
• 1 bag frozen cranberries, chopped finely in a food processor or blender
• 1/2-1 bag mini marshmallows
•  1 pint of cream-whipped with 4 tablespoons of sugar

Start by whipping the cream and sugar in a mixer on high. Once it has thickened to whipped cream, add in the apples, cranberry and marshmallow. Stir well and serve. 

If you want this dish a little sweeter, ad more marshmallows and more sugar to the cream. 

This dish freezes well and is also quite delicious slightly frozen. We serve it at Thanksgiving as a fruit salad but it would do for a dessert item as well. 

Beef soup

• beef shank- about 1.25 lbs
• 2 cans beef broth
• 2 cups water
• 1.5 Tbs. soy sauce
• 1 cup diced carrot
• 1/4 onion diced
• 1/2 package udon noodles

Start by seasoning and searing both sides of the beef shank and sauteing the onion and carrot in a large pot. Once everything starts to brown, add in the water and stock and soy sauce. Simmer over medium low heat for about five hours. If the liquid reduces too much, add a little more water. About halfway through, cut the meat into large chucks and let it keep simmering. Before serving, remove any large pieces of fat and the bone from the pot and start breaking up the meat. It should just fall apart. Then add in the udon and cook for how long the package directions say.

Creamy Clam Chowder

• 4 red or gold potatoes-diced into small bite size pieces
• 1 potato minced in a food processor until very fine
• 1 onion, minced finely
• 2 cans clams with the juice
• 1/2 package bacon, cut into small pieces plus half a slice
• 1/2 pint of cream

Start by sauteing the onion to  in your medium pot with a little bit of oil. Once they have just started to brown, add in the potatoes, clams and juice, and enough water that everything floats a bit. 

Simmer on low for at least 1 hour or until the potatoes are cooked through and the liquid has thickened. Stir often. The finely minced potatoes help thicken the soup without using a flour base. Place the half a slice of bacon in the soup to help give the soup a bacon flavor without letting the bacon you will eat get soggy. 

While the soup is simmering, cook the bacon until crispy and set it to dry out of the oil on a paper towel off to the side. 

Discard the piece of bacon that has been simmering in the soup. Then add in the half pint of cream and stir until the soup is heated through again. 

Serve the soup and top with bacon. Butter crackers or rolls make a great addition.

Chicken Florentine

Ingredients

• 2 large chicken breasts
• salt and pepper
• Oil
• Hollandaise sauce
• Roasted Asparagus. 

 Stuffing:

• 1 bunch of spinach- remove the stems and chop the spinach inter somewhat smaller pieces. 
• 1 cup of mozzarella cheese
• 1 tablespoon of garlic

Start by quickly blanching the spinach in boiling water. Have a large pot of salted water boiling and using a metal colander, immerse the spinach in the water for about 10 seconds and immediately immerse it in ice water and set to drain. When it has drained, mix the three ingredients together and set aside. 

 Next, take the chicken breast and cup off the end that starts to taper in and get thinner so you only have a roughly rectangular piece of the same thickness. Do this for both breast pieces. Then start to slice the breast in half but don't cut quite all the way through and lay it flat as a larger rectangle. Put it in between two pieces of cellophane and use the flat side of a meat hammer to pound it thin. Season the inside with a little salt and pepper.

 Then place about half the filling on one half of the thin chicken...

 And fold the other half over the top and season both sides of the outside.

 Place it in a pan on medium heat with a little oil in at and cover. Cook for about 7 minutes on each side making sure it cooks all the way through to the center of the meat. Try to avoid opening the chicken or the filling will start to ooze out. A little will anyway and that's okay.

 Finally, slice the chicken and serve topped with hollandaise sauce and a side of roasted asparagus.

Hollandaise Sauce

• 4 egg yolks
• 4 tbs. butter-melted
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• juice of half a lemon or about 1-2 Tbs. lemon juice.

Start by heating some water in a pot and putting the egg yolk and lemon juice in a bowl that won't melt. Metal bowls with a rounded bottom work best. Keep the water over medium heat (simmer not rolling boil) and put the bowl over the top. Keep whisking for 5-7 minutes. The eggs with slowly cook and start to thicken. Scrape the edges often.

 Next, add in the butter slowly. Keep whisking until the butter is fully incorporated into the sauce.

Finally add in the cayenne pepper and serve over things like poached eggs, asparagus, salmon or my favorites, Chicken Florentine (seen below) and Eggs Benedict (recipes coming soon). 

Tip 1: If your eggs start to scramble or your sauce gets a bit lumpy or grainy, adding in a fresh egg yolk can help smooth it out a little bit. Just make sure to cook it a bit longer. 

Tip 2: don't just throw away the egg white. They can be frozen or kept for other uses like meringue cookies or baked Alaska. 

Oven Roasted Asparagus

Start by trimming the ends off  a bunch on thin asparagus. Line a pan with tinfoil and spray it with pan spray. Then drizzle a little olive oil over them and sprinkle some slat and pepper. Roll them around until they are evenly coated. Bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes or until the tops are just starting to get crisp. This makes a great side dish. If you use thicker asparagus, you might want to peel some of the outer layer off the bottom of the stem, it tends to get a little woody. Also, the cooking time may take longer.