Liz Dodder

Top 10 New Year’s Cocktails & Coffee Recipes

by liz · Dec 8, 2016

With this roundup of our top 10 New Year’s cocktails + coffee recipes, you’ll be rocking in the new year.

1. Coffee Abuelatini

With iced coffee, chocolate and cinnamon flavors, this Coffee Abuelatini above is a classy choice for entertaining.

2. Puerto Rican Rum Punch (Coquito)

Try this Latin-inspired cocktail to add some spice to your New Year.

3. After Midnight Javatini

After Midnight Javatini above is terrific for holiday late-night celebrations. A chocolate-rimmed glass and a hint of coffee liqueur add a flavorful twist and a festive flair to this one-of-a-kind beverage.

4. Spiced Apple Cider

Cloves, cinnamon sticks and anise pods give this Spiced Apple Cider a festive and tasty flair that you will completely love. For an adult party, add an optional splash of vanilla vodka or rum.

5. Hot Peppermint Mocha Shots

For some non-alcoholic drink, these Hot Peppermint Mocha Shots add a peppermint kick and hint of coffee to your cocoa for a grown-up version of a childhood favorite. This tasty winter warmer is a rich and decadent party pleaser.

6. Vanilla Cappuccino

And for a morning-after rouser, try this simple Vanilla Cappuccino above, with a hint of cinnamon.

7. Caramel Macchiato Cappuccino

Craving the coffeehouse taste at home? Try the smooth, rich flavor of Coffee-mate Caramel Macchiato, a shot of espresso and steamed milk in this easy Cappuccino recipe. It doesn’t get more delicious.

8. Heavenly Hazelnut Hot Chocolate Liqueur

Hot chocolate with coffee and hazelnut liqueurs shown above will warm your soul on a cold night.

9. Rich ‘N Creamy Mint Cocoa

This elegant Creamy Mint Cocoa is perfect for chilly nights. Add a little Irish crème liqueur to add extra dimension! Top with whipped cream and dusting of cocoa.

10. Hot Buttered White Chocolate Caramel Espresso

Hot Buttered White Chocolate Caramel Espresso is rich and flavorful and ready in 5 minutes. This one is perfect for entertaining.

Hot Chocolate (Cocoa) with Ancho Chile

by liz · Dec 7, 2016

Today is National Hot Chocolate Day! A small holiday I know, but since I love chocolate and the nights are cold, I wanted to celebrate.

I found this recipe for Hot Cocoa + Pumpkin, and it gave me an idea for adding something a little spicier: ancho chiles. Ancho chiles are dried poblano peppers and are very common in Mexican cuisine, and I easily found whole ancho chiles in my local Hispanic market. Ancho chiles are not hot, but give food a fuller, slightly peppery flavor with a hint of smoky sweetness.

To infuse the chiles, chop one large chile and place in a sauce pan. Pour 1 cup of boiling water over the chiles and cover with lid. Let chiles steep for 5 minutes, then pour through a sieve into a mug. Add hot chocolate mix and 1 tablespoon (or more) half and half.

Infusing hot chocolate with ancho chiles was easy! This combination of chocolate and spice would also be great with the addition of coffee (for the morning) or pumpkin (for extra fiber and nutrients). I’m also thinking it would make a sweet-and-spicy, cold-weather treat for my Valentine…steeping and steaming my way into his heart.

Links:

Hot Cocoa + Pumpkin recipe
Nestlé Hot Chocolate

Related hot chocolate recipes:

Green Tea Hot Cocoa

Fresh Mint-Infused Hot Cocoa

Vin Chaud: Heavenly Mulled Wine

by liz · Dec 6, 2016

I once attended Christmas Eve Mass in an old cathedral built in the 1100s in Lausanne Switzerland. What I loved the most about this was the musty, mystical feel of the church filled with villagers in the cold night, the fact that I could understand much of the sermon in French, and the vin chaud (mulled wine) they served everyone at the end.

Being a new wine drinker, I’d heard of mulled wine but never tried it. This “warm wine” is heated and steeped with spices like clove, cinnamon and anise and then served hot, steaming with fragrant spices. It tasted like Christmas in a glass, but also of the vineyards. It was heaven. And I was drinking it in the perfect place.

I found mulled wine all over Europe during the holidays and through the cold winter months. It reminds me so much of winter holidays that I now make mulled wine at the end of every year, and into the new year too. I like to make it with local wines, especially young table wine and freshly-ground nutmeg to keep the experience original.

For a more modern, fusion vin chaud you can use white wine (making it more cider-like), add different combinations of fruit juices, grate fresh ginger into the mix and experiment with herbs to create different flavors. Make your own unique winter concoction and settle in for the winter.

Recipes to start:

from Nestlé Kitchens (easy)
from Food Network (easy)
from Epicurious (more involved)

Merry (Minty) Holiday Cookie Wreath

by liz · Dec 5, 2016

When December rolls around, I love to play holiday music, deck the halls of my little abode, and make some holiday treats. So, when I came across Jenny’s Holiday Baking video featuring this Very Merry Cookie Wreath, I wanted to try my hand at it.

I followed the recipe in the video, but made a few changes. I wanted to make my own cookie dough, because I love chocolate mint morsels during the holidays, which are sometimes hard to find. So, I dug up this Nestlé recipe to create your own flavor-infused morsels – just use peppermint extract in place of raspberry. Then, I wanted to make my cookie wreath a little healthier (that way I can eat more holiday treats!), so I used half the butter in the cookie dough and added 1 cup of chopped nuts.

Finally, I wanted to use real butter in my icing, so instead of buying something premade, I used this recipe for cinnamon butter cream frosting (from one of our Libby’s Pumpkin Pie Deconstructed bloggers), halving the recipe and replacing the cinnamon with 1 tablespoon of peppermint extract.

Putting the wreath together and decorating it was easy! I made my wreath with only 2 rows of cookies, only used half the icing to put it together and replaced the candy toppings with dried cranberries, shown above. Now, this was a minty festive holiday treat I could really feel good about.

Watch the video above to see how to make Jenny’s Very Merry Cookie Wreath step-by-step. Also included in the video are step-by-step instructions for another holiday favorite: Gingerbread Cutout Cookies.

Make Leftover Mashed Potatoes into Holiday Tapas

by liz · Dec 5, 2016

If you’re like my family, you have mashed potatoes at every holiday meal. They are a classic. We like to keep the skins on, then mash them with garlic, cream cheese, milk and butter to make them creamy and tangy…and delicious.

I wanted to find a way to make these favorite mashed potatoes into another dish, with a different flavor. I decided to use this Potato Pancakes with Applesauce recipe as a base, but replace the applesauce with a tapas-meets-middle-east tapenade. You can add diced leftover ham to the tapenade, or serve this alongside the ham. (And of course, you can also serve it with applesauce as in the original recipe – this would be great with ham too!)

For the tapenade, you’ll need:

1 jar Kalamata olives
1 clove garlic, diced
orange zest + orange pieces from 1 orange
1/2 cup orange/tangerine juice
1/4 cup olive oil
fresh basil, chopped
salt & freshly ground pepper
cooked ham, diced (optional)

Chop the olives and cut the orange pieces in half, then combine the rest of the ingredients in a medium bowl and mix. Set aside. Mold leftover mashed potatoes into golf-sized balls.

Pour enough cooking oil into a large skillet to cover bottom with thick film. Heat to very hot but not smoking, and drop potato balls in. Flatten immediately. Fry for 3 to 5 minutes or until golden brown; flip and brown other side, as shown above.

Drain on paper towels. Serve with tapenade (photo above). Or, try the original recipe and serve with applesauce and sour cream.

Braised Cabbage You’ll Want to Eat Every Day

by liz · Dec 4, 2016

This week I got the most gorgeous pointy head of green cabbage I’ve ever seen. It was so becoming I kept it out of the crisper drawer so I could lovingly admire it every time I opened the fridge. I thought about my head of cabbage often, wondering what would be the best way to cook it. My friend the Comedienne cooks my favorite cabbage as a side to her best baked chicken ever – or should I say an under, since it cooks under the chicken, absorbing all the juices and drippings. It’s delicious.

But this cabbage deserved to be the star of the show, the main event. I remembered Molly from Orangette describing how much she liked eating cabbage; she cooked it with hot sauce and she could eat it every day. I wanted to make cabbage like that.

I searched her site and found 2 more cabbage recipes (braised) – a stove-top braised recipe for red cabbage and an oven-braised recipe for green – so I switched out the cabbage color to make my own stove-top braised green cabbage with CSA carrots and a poached egg. I used my sweet, sweet head of green cabbage, substituted one of my favorite white wines for the chicken stock/water, opened some good sea salt, and finished it with artisan olive oil from Santa Barbara wine country.

Molly was right; I could eat this cabbage every day.

Ingredients

¼ cup olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, sliced into rough ⅓-inch slices
1 large carrot, sliced into ¼-inch rounds
1 medium head green cabbage, about 2 pounds
1-2 cups good-quality dry white wine, enough to cover cabbage halfway
Sea salt
⅛ tsp crushed red pepper flakes or other spice mix (or Sriracha sauce to finish)
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Instructions

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onions and carrots and cook until onions are translucent and slightly golden. Add cabbage, wine, salt, and seasoning. Cover pan and cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until the cabbage is very soft but not falling apart, about an hour.
Allow the liquid to cook off, so that the bottom caramelizes a bit. Stir the cabbage to incorporate the browned cabbage. Serve immediately.
Top with poached egg and Sriracha sauce if desired.

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Read the results of this eating-more-vegetables-in-season experiment:

Carrots Galore: Two Carrot Soups & a Carrot Side Dish

by liz · Dec 3, 2016

After I’d been a member of my local farm share – Silverlake Farms – for several weeks I realized I needed more carrot recipes. These were the most beautiful vibrant carrots I’d ever seen. I’d been eating them raw or in salads, along with the gorgeous radishes I also received each week.

I scoured the internet and asked my cooking friends, but didn’t come up with anything that unusual. Turns out carrots are best in the forms you already know: carrot soup – puréed of course – glazed carrots or as part of a base (as in soups, roasts or mirepoix).

I tried various interesting-sounding dishes I concocted myself, like mirepoix chilaquiles (better than it sounds!) and as an accompaniment in braised cabbage.

I ended up making two soups – the Purist’s form (my friend who knows the right way to cook any food) and one blended with tomato. I also dreamed up a glazed carrot dish with honey and blue cheese. All were supremely delightful.

The first soup was the Purist’s. He believes you don’t need to add any sugar, no seasoning besides salt, pepper and ginger nor any chicken broth nor cream.

And it would only work if you had the correct 2-speed Waring Pro blender and homemade vegetable stock made from organic veggies, preferably purchased at a local farmers’ market. So yes, I bought the blender, but I changed the recipe.

I brought my loot over to my friend and fellow foodie’s apartment, the Comedienne. We sautéed the carrots with shallots, onions and ginger, then added sherry, basil, mint and sage stuffed inside a leek (stuffing a hollow leek with herbs was the best idea the Purist had) and let it simmer. We did add chicken stock and cream and then threw it all in the blender. It was divine.

Another cold night, I took inspiration from Au Bon Pain and tried my hand at a tomato-based soup with puréed carrots. This time I sautéed the carrots with garlic and onion (and ginger, a nod to the Purist), added store-bought organic tomato soup, vegetable and chicken stock plus a tiny bit of cream. This soup was satisfying and rustic. I ate the whole pot that night with a crisp green salad.

And finally, tired of soup, I tried a glazed carrot recipe. I sautéed the carrots in olive and grapeseed oil over high heat, adding a dash of white wine and some garlic – ginger too! – and coarse sea salt. I lowered the heat and cooked it all down a bit, then added some honey and finished it with crumbled sharp blue cheese. Honey goes very well with both carrots and blue cheese, so why not put them all together?

This was definitely the best thing I’ve ever done with carrots.

Read the results of this eating-more-vegetables-in-season experiment:

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