Thursday, December 8, 2016

A Christmas Dinner Surprise ~ December 2016


Christmas dinner with friends... a gift swap... cookie swap and cookie decorating!  A full agenda for this evening's cooking club.

Betty and Cindy never fail to surprise or impress us!  They showed up to Jen's home with baskets filled with sugar cookies, paint brushes and food gel.  Time to get creative!  The cookies were in cute bundles - each of us to decorate as we wished.  What a fun surprise.

We started our evening with some festive appetizers.  Angi brought bacon wrapped cranberry water chestnuts... sweet and salty crunchy bites.  Pretty and delicious.

Bacon wrapped cranberry water chestnuts

Betty's savory tarts

Jen's herbed focaccia bread

While enjoying a glass of wine we opened our cookie packages and started paining.  Such fun...
Cindy & Betty

Jeanne

Cindy & Denise

Angi, Nina & Jeanne

Denise showing off her tree


The evening continued with a festive Christmas dinner including a hearty fish stew that Jen prepared for us. Cioppino ~ filled with clams, shrimp and muscles served over linguine.  Yum!
Jen's Cioppino
Denise's vegetable frittata
Jean brought a leek and artichoke bread pudding.  I somehow missed a picture of this item  - but it was fabulous!  (must have been the wine...)


Last but not least... dessert!  Cindy brought a frozen lemon mousse and Jen made hot chocolate and served it along with her homemade peppermint marshmallows.
frozen lemon mouse and hot chocolate

pretty bowl of homemade marshmallows

A fun festive evening with friends....wishing you all a Christmas full of love & cheer followed by   healthy and happy new year filled with health and good fortune!   Merry Christmas xo xo

Jen, Cindy, Angi, Jen, Denise, Jeanne, Nina & Betty

Some of our final displays of Christmas cheer - cookie style:









Thursday, November 10, 2016

Thankful We Have Us ~ November 2016


Betty hosted our November meeting.... "Thankful for us".  We enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving meal with many new recipes that we have not tried before.  The house felt so warm and inviting along with the amazing smell of the roast turkey in the oven.... 

Our task was to challenge ourselves with different recipes - something we wouldn't normally prepare on Thanksgiving Day.   For starters there was a selection of Angi's Savory Pecan Cookies... Denise's creamy salmon dip and Cindy's fig & blue cheese wrapped in prosciutto.

Salmon spread

Savory Pecan Cookies

Figs wrapped with Blue Cheese & Prosciutto 

We enjoyed a fabulous dinner...  with roasted turkey, cranberry & apple chutney, mushroom & leek bread pudding stuffing, broccoli with parmesan cheese & cream (recipe in the recipe page), sweet potato tipsy (served with chopped roasted pecans on top), hasselback butternut squash, and creamed kale.
Roasted Turkey
As always... plenty of delicious food...

Cranberry Apple Chutney
Mushroom & Leek Bread Pudding Stuffing
Broccoli with parmesan & cream
Sweet Potato Tipsy
Hasselback Butternut Squash
Creamed Kale
Roasted Turkey

A plate full of yummy!
And finally... dessert!  A pumpkin roulade with ginger buttercream.

Pumpkin roulade with ginger buttercream

Happy Thanksgiving to my Cooking Club friends... yes - very thankful for all of you!!! xoxo
Jen, Nina, Denise, Betty, Angi, Cindy & Jeanne
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Thursday, October 13, 2016

A Spooky Menu ~ October 2016

I'm sorry to say that this was the first cooking club meeting in almost 4 years that I missed!  Thank you to Betty & Nina for taking pictures to capture the evening....

Black Bat Wings

Nina's beautiful spooky table

Seafood stew
Devilsh Cornbread

Pumpkin Spice brittle

Shortbread fingers 
Angi, Nina, Betty, Kristy, Denise, Jen & Cindy

Thursday, August 11, 2016

Brazilian Menu ~ August 2016

Caipirinha rum cocktail

In honor of the summer Olympics - our cooking club went Brazilian!  Lots of shredded coconut, coconut milk and condensed milk used in Brazilian recipes.  I felt as if we were in Rio with 90+ degrees hot and humid!  Much discussion about the dive team, swimming, volleyball oh and yes the men's water polo!

As usual this group does not disappoint... the food was just fabulous!  We had two cocktails to choose from -red wine sangria & Caipirinha and Brazilian rum drink made with Cachaca (rum), lime and a little sugar.  Muddle the lime and sugar - add ice and rum... refreshing!

Denise made  a beautiful platter of veggies with two types of hummus... a traditional chick pea and one with cilantro... pretty display and delish!

Veggies & hummus






Betty brought Pastelzinho de Carne com Queijo (fried empanadas with meat and cheese).  These crunchy little pockets for so yummy - I could have eaten the whole plate!
Pastelzinho de Carne com Queijo

We started the evening in Jeanne's little oasis of a porch... but after melting a pound of sweat (did I mention again how hot and humid this summer has been???) we moved inside....

Betty, Jen & Angi
Jeanne, Nina & Jen
Denise & Cindy

Jeanne's dining room - cool and inviting was quickly filled with more food, drinks and laughter.  Thank goodness for the air conditioner and fans that Jeanne had buzzing around.

Cindy brought this fabulous fish stew... Moqueca.  She made this with cod and coconut milk and served over rice.  Fabulous!  
Moqueca
Plated up Moqueca - fish stew
Nina brought these cute little cheese breads... Pao de Queijo.  These went nicely with the fish stew.

Pao de Queijo

Jeanne servered a grilled steak with chimichurri sauce with roasted potatoes.
Steak & chimichurri sauce & roasted potatoes

Jen brought this colorful salad with grilled scallops, tomatoes, corn, fennel and fava beans.  Healthy, pretty and tasty ~ what else would you ask for!

Grilled scallop salad

grilled pineapple

Dessert - plenty to choose from.  Angi brought a chocolate & coconut cake.  I brought Beijinho de Coco (little coconut kisses). I dipped most in dark chocolate and had an almond in the middle - tasted similar to Almond Joys.  In the event no-one liked coconut Angi brought grilled pineapple with cinnamon and brown sugar.  Based on the dirty plates - I think we all enjoyed the chocolate & coconut!

Beijinho de Coco

Chocolate coconut cake

Another fun evening!  Great food, conversation and fun.  
Thank you cooking club family!
Jen, Jen, Nina, Betty, Cindy, Angi, Denise & Jeanne