Georgia Christmas was a low key affair this year. Candlelight service Christmas eve, A walk along the Rio Grande Christmas morning and a pretty basic dinner of Turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy and roasted brussel sprouts. All in all it was pretty nice Jen Our Christmas celebrations were spread out over a week, and I forgot to take pictures at most of them!! For one I made an entire ham dinner, and at another, Jade made some beautiful festive cupcakes from scratch. No pictures though! Oh well. We had a wonderful time with family and friends! Amy Not much to it kids. Just the dog and myself. I cooked up a big pot of Orecchiette with Sardinian Sausage Ragu. Played my Henry Mancini record as I made the meal. Happy New Year readers! Nikita Nikita and fam took a vacation from their vacation and spent the rest of their Christmas break exploring the Bulgarian countryside. The middle pic is a fortress in Veliko Tarnovo Praying everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a very prosperous 2020!
Georgia, Jen, Amy, Nikita and Amanda
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Georgia This week was my choice. So I chose soups and stews. Hello! Today is the first day of winter and nothing sounds better than a hot pot of soup or stew. I made this oh so delish pot of beef barley stew. The recipe is actually a soup.. But I coated my beef chunks in flour before browning it. Which gave the soup a rich stew like consistency. Jen This is the perfect time of year for soups and stews! In Phoenix this past week we hit a low temp of 39 degrees in the morning….BRRRRR! A nice warm bowl of food is perfect on a cold day. I’m sure I have mentioned before that I like to cook with ingredients that are on sale, or things I need to use up before they expire. Well, stews are PERFECT for using up vegetables. This time I made a stew of random stuff that turned out amazing. It doesn’t have a name, so I guess we can call it “Random Carrot Stew”! I love that my crock pot can be used on the stovetop too – I was able to brown the sausage first and then set the crock into the slow cooker all afternoon. By dinner time the whole house smelled so good!! The other nice part about stews is that I can prep and forget about it until I am ready to eat. It’s a busy time of year trying to get ready for Christmas, which is now less than a week away! Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas!! Amanda Good morning, I was not able to make soup this week. Work and holiday preparations took over all my free time. I wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Hope you all have a wonderful day. Sincerely, Mandy Amy As fate would have it my latest issue of Milk Street magazine arrived and there is an excellent soup recipe contained within. Without further ado Nikita Nikita and family are spending Christmas in Germany this year. Living the dream. Can't wait to hear all about this latest adventure FYI.. To check out Nikita's blog click here Several different hearty stews to make this winter.
Until next week we all wish you a very Merry Christmas, Georgia, Jen, Amanda, Amy and Nikita Amy I don't really eat much sweets and baked goods during the holiday season but I can over do it with meals. So a hearty healthy salad is much needed. Here's my contribution! Georgia What a great dinner choice for those few short weeks between stuffing yourself at Thanksgiving and over doing it at Christmas! Mine is less recipe - ish and more. I bought a bag of salad and added Asian pears, pomegranate arils and grilled chicken. The salad mix had kale, cabbage, lettuce, radicchio, parm pepitas and dried cranberries with a poppy seed dressing. The additions took this simple salad to the dinner level. Very filling and oh so healthy. A meal you can feel good about. Jen This winter salad is quick and easy, and you don’t have to make the entire recipe either – I threw together a bowl of it just for myself. I also opted for spinach instead of an herb as it suggested. I love artichoke hearts, so when I came across this recipe, I figured I’d enjoy it. I now know I like them in my salad too. 😊 Amanda For the winter salad week we made Blood Orange, Date, Almond salad. It was delicious. Even though I’m not a fan of dates they were good with all other ingredients in this recipe. This is a great dish for a quick meal during a busy week. Nikita Look at all of these yummy and healthy winter salads! All very filling meals you can feel good about!
Until next week, Amy, Georgia, Jen, Amanda and Nikita Nikita Boy, did we have leftovers! Our moist Romanian turkey gave us lots of dark and white meat in which we made sandwiches, additional Thanksgiving plates, and this splendid White Turkey Chili. The recipe calls for shredded chicken but we subbed it for turkey. On the side, I served avocado and tortilla chips. Yes, Bulgaria has tortilla chips! Because I'm really into taking food photos and now food video, enjoy my new GIF. This hot pot of comfort hit the spot because our days and nights are getting colder. We even got our first snowfall. 😍 Amy So....I had sent my Thanksgiving photo last Saturday. Alas, it's floating around in the nether. I decided to resend it. Trixie and I had ham, sweet potato mash, spinach, Mrs. Wood's pineapple casserole and homemade cranberry sauce. I made small portions because I didn't want to deal with leftovers. I promptly froze the remaining ham to break out on New Years Day ( you know it's going into a big pot of black eyed peas). I did make a big batch of cranberry sauce though because I put leftovers into hot cereal, yogurt, cottage cheese. I replace jelly on PB&J sammiches. I have substituted salad dressing with cranberry sauce...I guess cranberry sauce is to me what shrimp was to Bubba on Forrest Gump. Can you believe that movie is 25 years old? But the holidays can be depressing. Georgia I have zero leftovers.. But.. I do have this totally sweet photo of me taken early last Saturday morning in Old Town Philly and celebrating Pop's birthday at our favorite hotdog joint. Jen Amanda Thanksgiving leftovers are the best and Nikita's soup looks delish. Amy making Mrs. Woods pineapple casserole has me all heart eyes!
Rounding the corner to Christmas! Nikita, Amy, Georgia, Jen and Amanda |
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