Recipes

Chicken Salad
8 boneless skinless chicken breast halves (abt 2 lbs.), cooked and cubed
2 cups seedless red grapes, halved
2 cups salted cashew halves
2 celery ribs, diced
1 apple diced
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon tarragon or white wine vinegar

In a large bowl, combine chicken, grapes, cashews and celery, set aside.
In a small bowl, combine mayo, sour cream and vinegar; mix well. Pour over chicken mixture; toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Serve with croissants.

Yield: 12 servings.

Note: Prefer making this with ~1/2 tablespoon (maybe a splash more) balsamic vinegar instead of the tarragon vinegar.


Cranberry Applesauce Jell-O
2 small packages cherry Jell-o
1 cup boiling water
1-16 oz. can cranberry sauce
1-16 oz. can applesauce

Dissolve Jell-o in boiling water.

Combine cranberry sauce and applesauce, stir in dissolved Jell-o. Pour into 8x8 baking dish and chill in refrigerator until set. Cut into 2" squares and serve.

Note: You can use either jellied cranberry sauce or whole berry cranberry sauce. It all depends on the texture you're looking for.

Brie in Puff Pastry

2 lb. wheel of Brie
1 pkg frozen Pepperidge Farm puff pastry
1 egg, separated
brown sugar
chopped peacns

Cut wheel of Brie in half horizontally. Sprinkle on brown sugar and chopped nuts. Replace top of the Brie. Place Brie on one sheet of the pastry. Beat the egg white with a fork and brush onto the cheese and the pastry. Place the other sheet of pastry on top of the cheese, cutting off excess pastry. Wrap bottom pastry up to top and crimp edges to enclose cheese completely. Beat the egg yolk with a fork and brush over top and sides of pastry. Place on baking sheet and bake at 425°F for 30 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove and let stand 10 minutes before serving. Serve with crackers, grapes, baguette etc.

Note: Really any size wheel of Brie will work you just up and down the amount of sugar/nuts used and baking time.


Knor's Spinach Dip
1 pkg. frozen spinach, cooked, drained well, chopped
1-1/2 cup mayonnaise
1-1/2 cup sour cream
1 pkg Knorr's vegetable soup mix
1 can water chestnuts, drained and chopped

Mix everything together. Keep cold. Serve in bread bowl.


Kathy's Cinnamon Breakfast Cake
Filling and Cake:
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
1 pkg plain yellow cake mix
1 pkg (small) vanilla instant pudding mix
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup water
4 eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla

Glaze:
1 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla

Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly mist a 12-cup Bundt pan with vegetable spray and dust with flour.

For filling, place brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl and stir well. Set aside.

Sprinkle pecans in the bottom of prepared pan. Place cake mix, pudding mix, oil, water, eggs, and vanilla in large mixing bowl. Blend with mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Scrape down sides of bowl. Beat on medium 2 more minutes, scraping down sides again if needed. Batter should look thick and smooth.

Pour one third of batter into prepared pan. Scatter half of the filling evenly over the batter. Pour another third evenly over the batter. Pour another third of the batter evenly over the filling. Scatter the remaining filling over the batter. Pour the remaining batter evenly over the top, smoothing it out with the rubber spatula. Place pan in oven.

Bake 58-60 minutes, until it is golden brown and springs back when lightly pressed with your finger.
Remove from oven, place on wire rack to cool 20 minutes. Run a long, sharp knife around th edge of the cake and invert onto a rack. Allow to cool completely, 30 minutes more.

Meanwhile prepare glaze. Place confectioners' sugar, milk and vanilla in a small bowl and stir until smooth. Place the cooled cake on a serving platter and spoon the glaze over the top so that it drizzles down the sides and into the center of the cake. Slice and serve.


Sour Cream Pound Cake
2-3/4 cups sugar
1-1/2 cups butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
6 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon grated orange or lemon peel
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 350°F. Generously grease and flour 12-cup bundt pan.

In large bowl, combine sugar and butter; beat until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.

In medium bowl, combine flour, orange peel, baking powder and salt; mix well. Add dry ingredients alternately with sour cream, beating well after each addition. Pour batter into greased and floured pans.

Bake at 350°F for 55-65 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 15 minutes. Invert onto serving plate. Cool 1 hour or until completely cooled.

Playing Hostess

Saturday, 2 June 2007

Despite the craziness it creates, I really enjoy hosting parties. I love the way my house feels with all the energy of people coming, socializing, having a good time and feeling right at home. And of course it's clean ... at least the main floor of the house, and that always feels great!

Saturday, I solo hosted my first baby shower (at least I think it's my first). Typically, I'm co-hosting at someone else's house or I'm a behind the scenes helper designing invitations, offering to make food or bring something, but not this time, and despite all the stress and sleep deprivation, it was so much fun!

Tiffany got some really cute baby girl clothes!! Oh my will this little girl be well dressed - so cute!! And we girls had a great time chatting!

The menu ... Brunch ... I'm all about food I can prepare a head of time, and this was the perfect menu for doing that. Chicken salad, cranberry applesauce jello, baked Brie, spinach dip with veggies and pumpernickel rye bread, cinnamon pecan coffee cake, sour cream pound cake with strawberries and whipped cream.

The games ... I had a few "pseudo" games to play, mainly for the prizes -- you gotta have prizes at a shower - but our attendance was a little sparse (8 came, 5 stayed, 1 came for the last 15 minutes) for playing. We did the address your thank you note envelope drawing, a The Price is Right matching game which proved too difficult (so everyone got a prize for getting one right), and then Present Bingo, which we never even did because of our small numbers.

The party favor ... This was so hard! I wanted something nice, consumable, and inexpensive. Last year I picked a copy of Martha Stewart's Holiday magazine and inside it showed lots of different gifts you could make and more importantly, it showed you how to package a simple homemade gift to look anything but homely.

My first thought was to make soaps, but that seemed too time consuming ... my second thought was to make bath fizzies ... they seemed easy enough to make, the ingredients all came from the grocery store, and they are defiantly consumable. Making 47 bath fizzies was a good learning experience, but next time I'm leaning towards Harry & David Truffle's.