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Peachy Keen Cocktails!

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I know…it’s Labor Day Weekend and I should be deep into pumpkin, but I’m not ready for summer to end just yet. We’ve had amazing peaches lately, and if you still have nice peaches, why not infuse some booze? I used 8 ounces each of vodka, Captain Morgan Spiced Rum, and Pinot Grigio, and about 1/3 of a peach each, diced. Here they are hanging out in their jars (you can use any kind of closed container you have on hand).

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And a more artistic picture of the jars, just because the peaches look so pretty in there!

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I left them as shown (on the counter, not the windowsill) for a week and then tried out some cocktails with them. Just a note: when you’re making these drinks, be sure to include some of the peach cubes you’ve had soaking…so yummy!

First, a Peachy Vodka Lemonade:

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Combine 4 oz. lemonade and 4 oz. peach vodka in a tall glass. Fill with glass and garnish with peach slice.

Next, a Peachy Rum Sweet Tea:

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Combine 2 oz. peach Captain Morgan and 4 oz. sweet tea. Add ice and garnish with peach slice.

Then I tried a Peachy Wine Spritzer

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This one changes the proportions a little. Pour 4 oz. peach Pinot Grigio into a wine glass, add 2 oz. seltzer. Mix gently and add ice and a peach slice.

These are all pretty yummy and I recommend them all, but my favorite is what I’m calling Summer in a Glass!

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In a shaker, large glass, or pitcher, combine 2 oz. peach vodka, 2 oz. peach Pinot Grigio, 2 oz. lemonade. Mix well and add 2 oz. seltzer. Mix gently and pour into glass with ice.

Hope these peachy cocktails have inspired you to try some infusions! And don’t worry – I’ll be in total fall mode soon!

Party Menu Planning (plus the easiest dessert ever)!

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On Wednesday, we talked about everyday menu planning – figuring out what you’re cooking in an average week. But hopefully that’s not the only cooking you’re doing – a big part of life in the Den is parties, and today we’ll talk about menu planning for parties.

Whether you’re having a few people over for an elegant dinner or planning a potluck for 100, most party meals follow the same basic concept. There’s starters – maybe chips and dip, maybe a sit-down appetizer course, but there’s something to begin with. Then there’s the main course – it could be a takeout pizza or the Thanksgiving turkey and all the trimmings, but for this purpose, it’s all a main course. Last, but never least, there’s dessert. Again, this can be anything from putting a tub of ice cream on the table to serving petits fours on gold plates (can’t say I’ve ever done that, but it could happen), but almost everyone appreciates something sweet.

The biggest difference between everyday menu planning and party menu planning is that you usually know what your family can and will eat, but when you’re throwing a party, you have to consider your guests. How old are they? How fancy a party are you planning? Do people have allergies or special diets? If you don’t know, aren’t sure, or are planning for a large group, it’s best to avoid obvious allergens like peanuts (or label anything containing nuts well and keep it away from other foods), and plan to have something vegetarians/vegans can enjoy, as well as something for the gluten-free/carb conscious.

So…now you’ve got those basic ideas in mind. Now what? Back to the starter-main-dessert idea, and I have some examples. I apologize in advance for the awful pictures, and for somewhat contradicting my “something for everyone” advice, but in both cases, I knew the guests and their dietary preferences well.

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Here’s a (terrible) picture of a menu for a dinner we gave for eight friends last New Year’s Eve. You’ll note this exactly follows the starter-main-dessert template, which is a good basic template for any kind of sit-down dinner, from dinner for you and that special someone through a kid’s birthday cookout to Thanksgiving for 40 – only the foods themselves change. For instance, let’s say you’re having a kid’s birthday cookout. You might have goldfish crackers out on the tables to start, move on to hamburgers and macaroni and cheese for a “main course”, and finish up with the birthday cake.

Now, how does this work for a cocktail party, office party, or open house when you aren’t doing a sit-down dinner? Shown below is (another terrible) picture from a post-Christmas party I gave last year. Although it doesn’t exactly look like it’s following the template, the veggie tree and caprese salad wreath were out when people arrived, followed by the hot foods, and then dessert, which was sitting on a side table. For that kind of party, it’s almost more important to have food out when people get there, because drinks will often be served and you don’t want everyone drinking on an empty stomach!

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You’ll notice I typed these up, and they were actually taped to my kitchen cabinets! Just like your everyday menus, hanging them somewhere you can see them is really important. There are a lot of distractions when you’re having a party and having the menu hanging up will help you remember what you’re doing (there’s nothing worse than cleaning up after a party and discovering something in the back of the fridge that never got served), as well as letting you easily direct any guests who want to help. At the repast after my mother-in-law’s funeral, my parents and some dear friends were able to come to the house and set out the chips and dips and cheese while we went to the cemetery, because it was all written out and hanging on the counter – we had nothing to worry about. You don’t need to type the menus up, but sometimes I feel like if I’m hanging something up that people can see, I’d like it to look nice.

Hopefully these tips will help you the next time you’re having a party! And if you’re looking for a super-easy dessert for your Labor Day weekend entertaining, here’s a delicious trifle!

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Patriotic Trifle – serves 12

1 angel food cake (I made this one myself from a mix and added blue food coloring before baking)
16 oz strawberries, sliced
Whipped cream (1 cup heavy cream, 1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla – chill your bowl and beaters for at least 15 minutes and whip on high speed until peaks form (or buy a tub of the pre-made if you want to make life really easy))

Cut angel food cake into cubes. Layer angel food cake, strawberries, and whipped cream. Top with strawberries.

If you use a pre-made cake and a tub of whipped cream, it will literally take you longer to find a bowl to put it in than to make it, but it looks completely impressive!

Here’s hoping all your parties are a smashing success!

Supporting the Grieving

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This is a rare serious post – today is National Grief Awareness Day and I wanted to take a minute to talk about how to support the grieving. When someone passes, so often people don’t know what to say or do…often the most important thing is to just be there, and to keep being there. The first few weeks, people are all over the grieving, and far too often, after those first few weeks pass, we forget about the people who have suffered a loss and are trying to adjust to their “new normal”. Don’t push yourself on them, but check in – a simple “hi, I was thinking about you today” is enough to let them know someone cares. And take your cues from the person – they may be having a good day, and if they are and they want to talk about the weather or work or any other random thing, talk about that. If they want to tell you they’re having a terrible day and missing their loved one, let them talk about it. I heard from a friend once who had a really sad loss that one of her friends said “how are you doing” and she said, “not good” and her friend didn’t even comment on that, but just kept talking about herself. FAIL!

Another thing I’ve learned from walking through grief and with grieving friends is not to be scared to mention the person who’s passed – sometimes people tiptoe around even mentioning the name of the departed, but for the grieving, they’re thinking of him or her all the time, and it’s a comfort to know someone else remembers their loved one too.

Practical help is often appreciated in the beginning too, but if it’s rejected, don’t take it personally. Some people work through grief and sadness by being busy, and they may not want you running their errands, but everyone appreciates an offer – not a vague, “if you need anything”, but “hey, I’m going to x store, can I pick anything up for you?”

And one thing almost anyone can do – don’t forget to pray for the grieving. You may or may not be a believer, but I am and I believe the Lord can comfort the brokenhearted. So if you feel comfortable doing so, please remember your friends and relatives who have lost loved ones in your prayers.

OK…tomorrow I’ll be back to my usually scheduled fun posts. In the meantime, I am going to leave you with a recipe – this one isn’t mine but I did bring these to a funeral once. Compliments of Christi of Love From the Oven, here are what she calls Red White & Blue Bars and what I call Red Velvet Brownies – I’ve made them with white chocolate chips or other seasonal M&M’s and they’re delicious, no matter what you add: https://www.lovefromtheoven.com/red-white-blue-bars/

Menu Planning!

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Do you menu plan? I would be lost if I didn’t know what what I was making for dinner every night! Even when I was a crazy single girl and my dinner plans were often Bagel Bites and Lean Pockets, I still menu planned (so I’d know Monday was Bagel Bite night, ha ha). Seriously…although your menu plans may look different depending on your situation in life, I think it’s one of the easiest ways to save time and money.

There are four main factors I keep in mind when menu planning – the calendar, the circular, the cabinets, and the climate (really, the weather, but indulge me…I’m going with a “c” theme here).

First, the calendar – it’s just me and JP in our house, but if we have an event one night, I know I don’t need to cook that night. If I know one or the other of us has something planned, that influences what I’m doing. Maybe I can plan a meal takes a bit longer because I know he’ll be home late. Maybe I’d better have something ready in advance because I won’t be home till late. Besides things that hit the actual calendar, I take a minute to think about what’s going on in our lives. If I know I’ve been super-busy at work, I cook in advance or plan really quick meals. If I know JP’s working on a big project, I plan to make something that can be eaten cold or reheated nicely no matter what time he gets in. Obviously, if you have kids who are involved in various activities, this gets both more important and more complicated.

Next, the circular. I go to one supermarket every week and I look for sales whenever possible. The circular comes on Thursday (I actually get the newspaper on Sunday and Thursday just for the coupons) and I usually see what’s on sale that might spark an idea.

The cabinets…this includes the freezer and fridge. What do I have on hand? Maybe I bought produce last week that will last till Monday but no longer – I’d better find a use for it on Monday’s menu. Maybe ground turkey was on sale and I have some in the freezer – hmmm, maybe time for chili? Maybe I bought beans last week and got an unexpected dinner invitation before I could cook them – definitely time for chili! Shopping what you have on hand is definitely the easiest way to save money.

Finally, and don’t laugh too much, the climate/weather. If you live in San Diego, (a) you know it’s pretty much always 80 and sunny; (b) that fact makes me extremely jealous. Here in the northeast, we’re not so lucky. It’s not uncommon to have a week where it’s 90 one day and 60 the next. Here’s this week:

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It’s going from hot to mild pretty darn quickly there, and spring and fall tend to be even more dramatic! The dinner salad I might think sounds great when it’s 80 and sunny won’t be nearly as good if it’s 55 and raining, and vice versa for the homemade soup! So I don’t obsess over it, but I generally give my phone a look just to be on the safe side.

Generally I only plan dinner. At one time in my life, I made a cooked breakfast every day, and so I planned that too, and at various times, I’ve tried lunch planning, but these days, I just make sure I have food on hand and don’t really plan it out. If you are making breakfast and lunch at home, though, I’d recommend planning those meals too. Nothing like promising everyone pancakes and finding out you don’t have pancake mix!

The really, really, important step – write it down! And if possible, put it somewhere it can be easily seen. First, this saves you from having to remember anything. You can look at the menu plan each night and not only see what you’re supposed to be cooking that night, but what needs to be defrosted for the next night’s dinner. An additional bonus, if you live with people who can and are willing to cook, is that if you get delayed when dinner is supposed to be started, someone else can start it (or make a decision that they’d rather not start it and call for a pizza, which may or may not have happened in my house). Seriously, though, if you have a helpful spouse or kids with an interest in cooking, they may be able to help out, but only if they know what you had in mind. At the moment you know you won’t be home to start dinner because you’re slammed with work or stuck on the side of the road or dealing with a school crisis, you may not even remember what you were thinking of making for dinner! I have a cute pad with days of the week that I use (as shown above), but you can use a scrap of notebook paper or a really big post-it – you don’t need anything fancy. If you know you won’t do it without the right tools, you can usually find a days of the week pad at any office supply or big-box store.

It may take a little time and effort to menu plan at first, but believe me…once you start, you won’t know how you lived all these years without it!

Do you menu plan? Have you tried it and it didn’t work? What are your best menu planning tips?

On Friday, I’ll be discussing menu planning for special situations such as parties and house guests.

Peach Dinner Salad

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It’s National Peach Month, and I’m happy to celebrate it! Although Pumpkin Spice Lattes are coming back today and I know a lot of kids have gone back to school already, here in New York, it still definitely feels like summer – it’s supposed to be in the mid-90’s today! I like dinner salads in the summer, and I really like dinner salads with fruit! It’s also National Goat Cheese Month (who knew?) and this salad combines peaches, goat cheese, and chicken with a light vinaigrette for a cool, delicious, and easy  dinner!

Chicken and Peach Salad with Goat Cheese – serves 2-4

9 oz. cooked chicken
1 bag butter lettuce
2 peaches
1/4 cup goat cheese crumbles
1/4 cup peach balsamic vinegar (if you don’t have peach, white balsamic will work, but you might want to add a little sweetener and decrease the lime juice to 1/4 teaspoon)
1/8 cup vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon lime juice
1/8 teaspoon salt
Dash pepper

Dice chicken and peaches into 1/4 inch chunks. You don’t need to peel the peaches – I am not always crazy about the fuzzy skin, but it didn’t bother me at all in this. If it does bother you, feel free to peel away (or use nectarines).

Combine vinegar, oil, lime juice, salt and pepper and whisk well. Here it is during the whisking process, and doesn’t it look yummy already?

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Put lettuce, chicken and peaches in large salad bowl. Add vinaigrette and toss well. Top with goat cheese and enjoy!

A note about goat cheese: don’t let it scare you. I know I was scared of it for years – just the word “goat” kind of threw me off. It is a very mild, creamy, and downright delicious cheese, and it pairs wonderfully with any kind of fruit.

Hope you’re inspired to celebrate National Peach Month and the unofficial last week of summer with a dinner salad! I think I’m going to try to get a few more peach recipes in this week!

Lightly Fried Fish Fillets! (and coleslaw)

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Have you ever seen the text message meme where the dad keeps asking if his child wants “lightly fried fish fillets”? For some reason, it just makes me laugh, and now whenever I’m cooking fish, I think of the lightly fried fish fillets. Here it is if you haven’t seen it, and no…I don’t know why it makes me laugh so much.

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We get the opportunity to have lightly fried fish fillets fairly often because JP loves to fish. Last night, he caught some ling, and the people on the boat recommended frying it. There isn’t much of a recipe to these. Season flour with salt, pepper, and Old Bay seasoning. Dry each fish fillet, dip in a mixture of beaten egg and water, dip in the flour, making sure the fish is covered well. While you’re doing that, heat about 1/2 inch vegetable oil in a frying pan (preferably one with high sides) till oil sizzles when you flick a drop of water in – be careful! Fry the fish in the hot oil, being careful not to overcrowd the pan (I got four of the skinny pieces shown above in at a time), until brown on both sides. Remove to a paper-towel lined plate and let any excess oil drain.

I also made a nice vinegar coleslaw to go with them, and there is a recipe for this. A really easy one, but a recipe. This will serve about 2-4 people, depending what else you have with it, but it’s easily doubled.

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You’ll note this is not a mayonnaise-based coleslaw – I make them sometimes, but I find a vinegar slaw is nice with fried food.

 Vinegar Slaw

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 and 1/2 tablespoons white vinegar
1/2 teaspoon celery salt
1 and 1/2 teaspoons stevia (or your sweetener of choice, I’ve done this with two splenda packets and also with a teaspoon of sugar)
Dash pepper (about four turns of the mill)
1/2 bag coleslaw mix

Combine oil, vinegar, celery salt, sweetener, and pepper. Whisk well until combined. Add coleslaw mix and refrigerate about 15 minutes. Enjoy with or without lightly fried fish fillets.

Hope you’re feeling inspired to make some lightly fried fish fillets of your own!

Styling Someone Else’s Basket (with hand lettered coloring pages!)

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So…tomorrow is my niece’s 10th birthday. She, like her Aunt Ally, loves crafts and school supplies and things that sparkle, so I got her a bunch of all those things (see above). I even decided to do a few crafts projects of my own for her present!

First, I made her a jar to hold her new pencils and pens and markers (sparkle gel pens!) I found a plain mason jar in a crafts store, painted it with two coats of pink glitter paint, and then used glitter glue to draw some hearts and flowers and dots.

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I also made hand-lettered coloring pages. I’ve started hand lettering lately, and I’m not going to say I’m great at it yet, but I’m pretty happy with these. Mark the paper in pencil at 1/2 inch intervals (and if you want, mark the center of the paper with a pencil line), write out whatever you want to say (also in pencil), and then write a second line around each letter to give empty space for coloring. Then, go over the pencil letters with an sharpie (extra fine or fine point, depending how big you want your lines to be, as seen below (this was an extra fine).

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As you can see from the next picture, when I was going over the letters, I changed some of them quite a bit. Don’t let the large amount of leftover pencil worry you!

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Wait a few minutes to make sure the sharpie is dry. Take a good eraser – you don’t need to go to an art supply store (I got mine in a big box office supply store), but test it out first to make sure it isn’t going to be hard and smeary. Erase like crazy – be gentle, because you don’t want to crumple or tear your paper, but you want to remove all that pencil!

The finished product:

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To assemble the basket, I grouped some items together in gift bags, wrapped everything else in tissue paper, and popped them all in that cute cat tote! Here’s the inside of the tote:

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And here’s the finished product:

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I’ll let you know if she likes it!

Grilling and Chilling!

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How do you feel about grilling? Not eating grilled foods, actually grilling? For years, I avoided it – I think I felt grilling was “men’s work”. A few years ago, I was planning dinner on the grill and JP got stuck late at work, so I gritted my teeth and tried cooking on the grill, and found (a) it’s really pretty easy and (b) I’m really pretty good at it!

So…yesterday was my birthday. JP’s been working crazy hours lately, so he took me out for dinner Sunday. Which was nice, but then I had to decide – what did I want to cook for my birthday dinner? As it happened, yesterday was a crazy work day for me, so he ended up taking me out for dinner, and I made my (grilled) “birthday” dinner tonight.

One of my favorite things to put on the grill is zucchini – I think grilling really brings out the flavor of the zucchini. I sliced two large zucchini lengthwise into fairly thick slices and marinated it for about 15 minutes in a mixture of 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/2 tablespoon garlic powder, 1 tablespoon parsley flakes, and salt and pepper.

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While the zucchini was hanging out letting the oil and spices sink in, I preheated the grill by leaving the top closed and turning all burners on high till the temperature is as high as it can go, went over it with a wire grill brush to remove anything burned onto the grates , turned it down till the temperature was about 450, and put my sausage on to grill. After about ten minutes, I put the zucchini on, turned the sausage, and in about 20 minutes total, we had a delicious dinner! By the way, I left the grill closed when the sausage was on there alone, and then finished the sausage and made the zucchini with the grill open (it gets too hot for the zucchini with the top closed).

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(Yes, part of the sausage is indeed burned – that’s the way I like it, and it’s (still) my day, so that’s what I did!)

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To go with our sausage and zucchini, I made a quick Caprese salad with 15 cherry tomatoes and 4 oz. fresh mozzarella. The dressing was 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar, a little salt and pepper, and 1/4 tablespoon dried basil. I would have preferred fresh basil, but I wanted to pick that up yesterday, and as I said… the last two days at work have been busy and I never made it to the store! It still tasted pretty good, but I’d recommend fresh basil any day!

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Hope this has inspired you to try grilling for yourself!

Taco Casserole

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Do you love tacos but think you can’t have them because you’re trying to watch carbs? Or are you just looking for a way to get more tacos into your life? Well, if that’s the case, here’s a delicious and easy taco casserole!

I’ve been a little obsessed with cauliflower casseroles lately – JP actually told me yesterday that I have to make something without cauliflower, but then he said, “but not this, this is really good”.  Don’t be scared off by the amount of seasoning – the cauliflower and dairy kind of overwhelms it, and if you use less, you’ll lose that “taco” taste.

And a quick story about tacos and cheese: I recently met some college friends of a friend of mine who passed last year, and they started sharing stories about him. One of them said that when they had tacos in the dining hall, my friend would get the taco shell, put the cheese in, and then put the meat on top, because isn’t the point of the cheese to melt, and wouldn’t it melt better with the hot meat on top of the cheese instead of the other way around? Everyone was laughing and I was thinking, “wow, that is a brilliant idea”. So although I say the cheese on top is optional, I’d recommend it (but I personally think most things are better with more cheese, especially if it’s melted)! I mean, just look at all that cheesy goodness on the plate!

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Taco Casserole

1 lb ground beef (you can use ground turkey if you prefer)
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 and 1/2 teaspoons cumin
Salt and pepper to taste
12 oz. cauliflower (I use the kind that comes frozen and steams in its bag)
4 oz cream cheese, softened
1 cup salsa
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup shredded cheddar, plus 1/2 cup shredded cheddar for top (if desired)

Brown ground beef in skillet with chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, salt and pepper. While the ground beef is browning, steam cauliflower as directed on bag less 30 seconds (if you prefer fresh cauliflower, steam until just tender). Put cauliflower in microwave and oven safe casserole dish and add cream cheese. Microwave cauliflower and cream cheese for 30 seconds and mix well. Add cooked and drained ground beef, salsa, sour cream, and one cup cheddar cheese.

If desired, top with 1/2 cup cheddar cheese. Bake at 375 for 20 minutes or until cheese is melted and casserole is bubbly.

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Christmas in August!

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Part of my job (ok, my favorite part of my job) is throwing parties, and my personal favorite was Christmas in August. Everyone loves the holidays and it’s a fun way to do something unexpected. And it’s not that hard. With August 25th approaching, this is a good time to revisit the idea! Unfortunately, no one took pictures at this party, but hopefully the description will inspire you to try it yourself!

Decor

You probably have some holiday decorations in a closet. Pull them out – you don’t need to put up a tree (unless you really want to), but a little garland goes a long way towards setting up a holiday atmosphere. If your holiday decorations are in storage or just don’t exist, try an image search for “tropical Christmas” and print out some pictures of Santa on the beach and decorated palm trees. Of course, if you live in a climate where palm trees are decorated in December, it may not seem quite as unusual as it does in New York, but it still works. Center each picture, align it to the bottom margin of your page, and fold each page over towards the top of the page. Glue to a ribbon or garland, and voila – a fun holiday decoration that you won’t feel bad tossing after the party!

I also made the sign shown above using an old picture frame I had on hand. This took absolutely no lettering skills – I printed out the saying in a pretty font on several sheets of paper, taped the paper to the back of the glass in the picture frame, and traced over it with a paint pen. Once it dried, I removed the paper, and I looked like I had mad calligraphy skills.

Food and Drink

The idea in planning the menu was to have foods that seem seasonal without being super heavy, cold-weather foods. Hopefully you have some holiday platters available, because even store-brand chips and dip look festive when they’re on holiday platters! If you have any leftover holiday paper goods, this is a great time to use them up. If not, just go for plain red and green plates, forks, and cups.

I made easy strombolis using pre-made pizza crust (the kind that comes in a ball, but if your supermarket doesn’t have them, the tubes sold by the biscuit area should work too – you just don’t want a frozen one), one filled with sliced pepperoni, mozzarella, and basil on one and the other with grilled zucchini, roasted red peppers and mozzarella – continuing the red and green theme!  These can be made in advance and heated up right before serving, and they don’t have to be served piping hot, which is always good for party food. In addition, I made a veggie tray in the shape of a tree (made easier by using a platter shaped like a tree) with broccoli, cauliflower, and yellow peppers cut into stars.

Of course, there were cookies – I just did slice and bake sugar cookies with red and green crystals. I also made these easy pineapple coconut snowballs from Just A Pinch:  https://www.justapinch.com/recipes/dessert/cookies/no-bake-cream-cheese-coconut-snowballs.html because what doesn’t say warm weather Christmas more than pineapple coconut snowballs?

To drink, we had strawberry sangria (recipe following) and frozen hot chocolate. To go with the hot chocolate, I put out whipped cream, crushed peppermint candies, mini marshmallows, and because this is a drinking crowd, Bailey’s and Kahlua. Of course, water and soft drinks were also served. If you’re doing this for kids, you might want to make a non-alcoholic red punch, and the frozen hot chocolate is a hit with all ages.

In conclusion, throwing a Christmas in August party may seem like a lot of work, but it’s not nearly as intensive as you might think and it’s a lot of fun!

Strawberry Sangria – makes 1 large punch bowl full

This is based on a recipe I found online, but I made some changes, because I thought the original was a little too sweet.

1 cup strawberry simple syrup (see below)
2 bottles prosecco, chilled
2 cups vanilla vodka (can use plain if you can’t find vanilla)
1 cup strawberries, washed, hulled, and halved

Prepare simple syrup. Put two cups washed and hulled strawberries, 1/2 cup sugar, and one cup water in a pot over high heat. Bring to a boil and let simmer about 15 minutes. If the strawberries look “washed out”, strain them out. With or without berries, let cool completely. This can be made a few days in advance – just keep in a well-sealed (especially if you made it at home and are carrying it to work) container.

Put strawberries in bottom of punch bowl. Add prosecco, vodka, and strawberry syrup. Mix well and serve. If desired, add ice.