New Year's Eve is a time for celebrating, so I always like to keep the food simple and delicious — with lots of sparkling, of course. To avoid a bunch of cleanup after a party, I prefer to serve appetizers with no utensils required. An endive spear filled with sweet potatoes, bacon, crème fraiche, and a sprinkling of chives fits the ticket perfectly.
I experimented with these on Christmas to make sure they are perfect for New Year's Eve. The sweet potato and bacon I prepped the morning of,
Recently, I made homemade cherry bounce as one of my edible gifts this year. The liqueur is lovely as an after-dinner cordial, but I also couldn't wait to experiment with other uses for it. PartySugar discovered that cherry bounce tastes great simply mixed with some tonic water or seltzer; it takes on a refreshing, spiked cherry cola quality. But beyond adding sweetness to simple spritzers, cherry cordial also adds a soft, fruity twist to the most classic of cocktails, the old-fashioned. Make the most of cherry bounce when you read more.
When I tried Baconnaise for the first time last year, I declared it the best thing since sliced bread. Its savory roundness led me to ponder: if Baconnaise is this good, why buy regular mayonnaise ever again?
I knew, from the way bacon turned up in just about everything, that this was only the beginning for J&D's, the mastermind behind Baconnaise. The latest food concepts up the company's sleeve? Bacon Ranch and Bacon Pop — because, as the motto claims, "everything should taste like bacon." We put it to the test. Should everything really taste like bacon? Read on to find out.
In continuation of our Best of 2009 coverage, we asked you about your favorite kitchen store of the past 12 months. The vast majority of you — 58 percent — declared Cost Plus World Market tops, for its affordability during tough economic times.
Although we're also fans of the imported sundries sold at Cost Plus, we must respectfully beg to differ: for the second year in a row, we're naming Williams-Sonoma as 2009's best kitchen store. True, the California kitchenware company has partnered with us on some colossal giveaways this year. But more than that, it's been the source of many solid recipes, cocktail ideas, and, of course, covetable kitchen items. Tell us what you love about Williams-Sonoma, or your favorite kitchen store!
From Fine Cooking
Ingredients
3 slices bacon, thinly sliced crosswise
1 small sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch dice (about 1-1/2 cups)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 Tbs. thinly sliced fresh chives
2 medium heads Belgian endive
1/4 cup creme fraiche or sour cream
Directions
Serves 8-10.
In a discussion with several colleagues, I discovered that, apparently, complicated cocktails are a bit of a love it or hate it thing. While PartySugar and I appreciate the rise of highly nuanced cocktails — like the Grey Lady pictured here — one co-worker begged to differ. "I hate waiting for fancy drinks," he lamented. "I'd just rather order a vodka and cranberry; it has the same effect, anyway."
He has a point: I once waited twenty minutes on a cocktail at The Violet Hour in Chicago — although my drink's multifaceted flavors wound up tasting perfectly balanced in every imaginable way.
I'm making tonight a laid-back Monday night by chilling in front of the tube with a bowl of homemade soup. I'll be giving an old Winter standby, corn chowder, a facelift with two ingredients that have been very big this decade: leftover bacon, for smokiness, and frozen, shelled edamame, to up the protein ante.
To turn this hearty stew into a weeknight feast, I'm going to serve it with some crusty garlic bread and a mixed green salad. The result is a satisfying meal that takes minutes to make. Interested? Then keep reading for the recipe.
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From flutes to saucers, around this time of year, one can never have too many sparkling wine glasses. That's why I've rounded up the Internet's most fabulous glasses. Thanks to our wonderful bookmarking tool, it's easy and fun to do. You simply search the web for champagne glasses and bookmark the ones you love. Then you can create a pretty little widget and share your finds with everyone like I did here. How great would it be drink from these angular flutes on New Year's Eve? They have the word "cheers" engraved on the side, so suddenly drinking becomes a learning experience. Check out my selection of glasses below and start bookmarking your own!
To learn more about bookmarking read the complete instructions here.
This dessert isn't necessarily light in the "lite" sense, but with its delicate glaze and perky lemon profile, it's a bright and buoyant counterbalance to all the chocolate holiday confections. With some Meyer lemons from a friend's tree, I made this lemon cornmeal cake as an epilogue to Christmas, and it was unintimidating yet delightfully different.
Remembering another recipe I've been wanting to make for a polenta cake, I decided to take the Mediterranean inspiration and substitute olive oil for the butter, which gave the cake a rich, but exotic flavor. Though I planned to infuse the glaze with rosemary, I ran out of time, but still used a sprig as a festive garnish. Get the recipe when you read more
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