Saturday, November 28, 2009

Gingerbread Cupcakes


These pretty cupcakes are such festive treats for Christmas. How would you like them as handmade Christmas gifts? Click here to find recipes.

Friday, November 27, 2009

Apple Cider Punch

I made this last night at a Thanksgiving dinner party that I attended. It was a potluck and every guest had to contribute to the Thanksgiving menu. I offered to prepare this beverage because it was easy and I didn't have to do any cooking at home and worry about carrying it and driving it to the party.. I just brought a couple bottles of sparkling wine and used the orange juice, apple cider and lemon juice that were already in the host's fridge and I made the punch at the party right after everybody had arrived. It was such an easy and exotic cocktail recipe that I had pulled off very successful even it was my first trial. It's a fool-proof beverage to make for a big crowd in a couple minutes. It was a big hit and there was no one drop of the punch left in the punch bowl after dinner. I doubled up the recipe and I used organe juice. Next time, I would like to try making it with the cranberry-juice that the recipe also suggested. Click here to see the recipe.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Citrus-Avocado Salad

This recipe is featured in the book "Test Kitchen Favorites: 75 Years of Recipes Too Good To Be Forgotten" . You can also find the recipe here.

This recipe was first published by Better Homes & Garden in 1939. One of the ingredients in this recipe is pomegranate seeds. We don't know how widely available were avocados and pomegranate seeds back in 1939 in America since none of us are native of this country, but even with such ingredients easily found in our grocery stores today, we still find this salad refreshing and exotic in today's food-rich culture. The combination of avocado and pomegranate seeds in a salad? We haven't had such an exotic salad even in restaurants in Santa Monica or anywhwere in our metropoltian hometowns in Asia....and we live and breathe in the restaurants all over the world... We've got to try to make this one at home for sure. We love this book cause it shows us a lot of America's history. Amazing what one can learn from a cookbook, no wonder we can't stop buying them... We can only imagine how innovative and forward thinking the American cooks were in 1939. That was before even Julia Child's stint in France. We can't help but wonder why couldn't she look back at her home turf for cooking inspiration. From what I heard from her, it was France that introduced the world of good food to her. May be she would have started cooking earlier if only she had subsribed to the Better Homes & Garden magazines. And just how many Americans in 1939 were oblivious to this forward-thinking recipe, like Julia Child was?

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Smoked Thanksgiving Turkey


As my quest for a great tasting and enticing looking turkey continues, I found this turkey recipe on a very interesting food blog that I would like to share with you.... You can go to Chaos In The Kitchen for the recipe. Out of that delicously chaotic kitchen of the blog's author, you can even pick up some great side dishes to pair with this mouth-watering bird.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Roasted Free-Range Turkey with Pear Chestnut Stuffing

Is cooking a turkey really a huge task? I have been reading cooking blogs hoping to find a good turkey recipe that presents an enticing bird prepared by the common folks... (not a chef, not a celebrity cook or a cooking magazine that have 100 years of experience in roasting a pretty turkey...) But I can't seem to have much luck. Lots of blogs don't even blog about a roast whole turkey. Very few do but their birds don't look too good. So I have to once again refer to my favorite guru, Martha Stewart, for a turkey recipe... I just hope with my limited cooking ability, I can manage to reproduce this turkey in my kitchen, without disfiguring its pretty physical appeal...
This turkey recipe is featured on the Martha Stewart Living Magazine November 1997 issue, how do you like it?

Friday, November 13, 2009

Roasted Chicken Drumsticks & Vegetables In Plum Sauce Under $5


I made this tonight for dinner. The preparation is extremely simple and fast. Love this dinner a lot better than the usual take-out I get. Making a good home cooked dinner is not as much trouble as I thought. I can't get any take-out dinner for 4 anywhere cheaper than this, I bought the drumsticks for $2.20, vegetables for $0.88 from Ralph's manager sale tonight. The steam rice I served this with was from the Chinese restaurant leftover my client treated me to 3 days ago. The seasonings are already in my pantry and have been there for a while, glad that I found this recipe to use up the plum sauce that my mother gave me when she won a whole box of 2 dozen from some charity lucky draw she attended... You can find the recipe here.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Quick Sticks


This recipe was originally featured in Martha Stewart Living Magazine November 1997 issue in the article "Making Crackers", sort of to give readers an idea of making cracker gifts for the holidays. When brainstorming for money saving ideas, I suddenly remember this article I read when I was in college... glad to find the recipe updated on Martha Stewart's Website with how-to video.