Christmas

Sparkling Holiday Champagne Punch

by liz · Dec 16, 2018

This is a delightful winter holiday punch with pears, cranberries and Sparkling Wine. You can use Champagne, Prosecco, Cava, Crémant or any other type of bubbles you can find—we especially love all the latest Central Coast Sparkling Wine. If you use a drier sparkler, just use less ginger ale. You can also adjust the amount of pear juice to your taste—especially if you like a fresher, crisper libation. On the other hand, many folks prefer a sweeter punch, and pear nectar or soda will pack more punch in that area.

Sparkling Holiday Punch – recipe adapted from Meals.com

Ingredients:

2-3 cups of fresh pear juice or purée (or 2 cans pear nectar or soda)
2 cinnamon sticks
4 whole cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 can (12 oz) ginger ale, chilled
1 bottle (750 ml) sparkling wine
1/2 cup frozen cranberries

Directions:

PLACE nectar, cinnamon sticks, cloves and cardamom in large saucepan. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 5 minutes.

REFRIGERATE for 4 hours or until chilled. Remove cinnamon sticks and cloves with slotted spoon. Pour mixture into large punch bowl; stir in ginger ale. Float cranberries on top.

Sparkling Holiday Champagne Punch

Author: Meals.com

Recipe type: Drinks

Prep time: 5 mins

Total time: 5 mins

Serves: 8 cups

This is a delightful winter holiday punch with pears, cranberries and Sparkling Wine.

Ingredients

3 cans pear nectar
2 cinnamon sticks
4 whole cloves
½ teaspoon ground cardamom, (optional)
1 bottle (1 liter) ginger ale, chilled
½ cup frozen cranberries

Instructions

PLACE nectar, cinnamon sticks, cloves and cardamom in large saucepan. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 5 minutes.
REFRIGERATE for 4 hours or until chilled. Remove cinnamon sticks and cloves with slotted spoon. Pour mixture into large punch bowl; stir in ginger ale. Float cranberries on top.

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Sea Salt Mania & Chocolate Dipped Caramels

by liz · Dec 11, 2018

Chocolate Dipped Caramels with Sea Salt Recipe — Photo by Meals.com

This season it seems everywhere I look, I see chocolate topped with sea salt, caramel made with fleur de sel, or salted candies of some kind. And it tastes so good; that combination of salt, sugar and chocolate! I looked through our holiday recipes, and found a really easy sea salt, chocolate and caramel version. It looked easy enough for a kid.

So I enlisted the help of a very savvy 9 year-old in the kitchen. And I was right. My Little Assistant followed the directions, melted chocolate, dipped caramels and consulted on salt-chocolate flavor combinations. We ended up with 3 kinds: dark & mint chocolate with black lava sea salt, semi-sweet chocolate with Hawaiian clay sea salt and cinnamon, and semi-sweet chocolate with bamboo sea salt and lemon zest.

They were all delicious, but the ones with lemon zest added a lovely citrus twang, and reminded me of summer. So they were my faves (shown above).

Chocolate Dipped Caramels with Sea Salt by Meals.com

Ingredients:

1 cup (6 oz.) Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
1 teaspoon vegetable shortening
1 pkg. (5.5 oz.) about 25 pieces, soft & chewy rectangular caramels, unwrapped*
1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon coarse sea salt

Directions:
LINE baking sheet with wax paper.

MICROWAVE morsels and vegetable shortening in small, uncovered, microwave-safe bowl on HIGH (100%) power for 1 minute; STIR. The morsels may retain some of their original shape. If necessary, microwave at additional 10- to 15-second intervals, stirring just until morsels are melted; cool slightly.

DIP caramel pieces, using a fork, into melted chocolate. Shake off or scrape excess chocolate against side of bowl. Place on prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle with sea salt. Refrigerate for 15 minutes or until set.

* 25 square caramels can be substituted for the rectangular caramels.

Make Leftover Mashed Potatoes into Holiday Tapas

by liz · Dec 5, 2018

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.