Appetizers for a New Year's Eve with the family, at home by the fire

My kids love appetizers. They love to be able to nibble away at food, slowly grazing and picking over the course of a few hours. It's fun, it's celebratory and special. We do this once or twice a year and it is the only time my children are allowed to eat in the family room, on the couches in front of the fire. That in itself is a fun thing!

One day, when the children are older, we'll have festive, formal dinners, But I truly enjoy the casualness of the appetizers and the togetherness as we spend the evening waiting to ring in the New Year!

We started out slowly. Our aim was to stay awake until Midnight. At 7:00 I brought out some mini gherkin pickles, green olives, black olives and peanuts. We munched on those as we sipped our celebratory beverages. My husband had a fabulous Dirty Martini, I a lovely glass of Veuve, and the children sipped Sparkling Italian Grapefruit Soda (Trader Joe's).






At 8:00 I brought out my Spicy Artichoke Dip and Ina Garten's Sun-dried Tomato dip (pictured below) that is truly out of this world! We noshed on those with pita chips and toasts made from French bread.




At 9:00 I started on Pioneer Woman's Steak Bites and Black Eyed Pea Salsa. Both were outrageously delightful!

We were so full that we never ate the cheeses (Blue, Manchega and Smoked Gryere) that I was going to serve with sliced pear, apple and crackers.

Nor did we get to the shrimp. I had intended on making The Barefoot Contessa's baked shrimp. Instead I tossed my clean, uncooked shrimp in the freezer to be enjoyed another day.

I purchased fresh and wonderfully delicious blackberries at the market on sale as well as strawberries to have with French Macaroons and Lemon Bars. I completely forgot about the grapes! I was going to hand out a dozen grapes to everyone as the Spanish tradition goes, but I totally forgot! I hope this doesn't mean we lose out on a chance for a very sweet year!


PW's Black Eyed Pea Salsa

(Except I couldn't find black eyed peas at two stores and we were in the midst of a mini snow storm so I had to use black beans)

Ingredients

• FOR THE DRESSING:
• ½ cups Olive Oil
• ⅓ cups White Wine (or Regular) Vinegar (I used Cider Vinegar, almost a full cup)
  2 Tablespoons (to 3 Tablespoons) Sugar ( I thought it was a bit too sweet with 2)
  
• 1 teaspoon Celery Seed
• ½ teaspoons Dry Mustard ( I didn't have any. Ack!)
  
• ½ teaspoons Salt
• Freshly Ground Pepper, to taste
• _____
• Vegetables
• 3 stalks Celery Finely Chopped
• 3 stalks Green Onions, Sliced
• 1 whole Red Bell Pepper (Chopped)
• 1 whole Cucumber, Peeled, Seeded, And Chopped
• 1 whole Jalapeno (optional), Seeded And Chopped (I omited this too as I thought it would be too spicy for my four year old!)
• 1 cup (or More If Desired) Chopped Cilantro
  
• 2 cans Black-eyed Peas, Drained

Preparation Instructions

Mix together dressing ingredients. Set aside.

Combine all vegetables (except cilantro) with black eyed peas. Pour dressing over the top and gently stir together. Add cilantro and stir gently.

Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour. Serve with tortilla chips. (I thought they were best with blue corn tortilla chips)

PW's Steak Bites (I'm telling you run out and get some sirloin NOW!)

You'll need a package of sirloin steak.

You'll trim it of all excess fat and then cut slices about 1/2 in. thick, then you will cut bite sized pieces. Toss the pieces in to a bowl and sprinkle on a generous amount of sea salt, freshly ground pepper and garlic powder. Toss to ensure that the meat is well covered with the seasonings.

You'll add about 2 Tbs of butter to a pan, heat it up and get really hot. As the butter sizzles toss in about half your meat.

You'll cook your meat about 1 minute on each side. The trick is to quickly sear the sirloin so that the outside gets dark and crispy and the inside stays pink and tender. When done place on a plate, add 2 more tbs of butter to the pan, let it sizzle, add the meat and repeat.

Serve immediately!

Dirty Martini with Blue Cheese Stuffed Olives (I'm pretty sure this is going to be my husband's signature drink!)

2 oz good vodka, chilled
3/4 oz. Olive juice, chilled
1/2 oz Dry Vermouth, chilled
3 Colossal olives
Blue cheese
Toothpicks

Take a Colossal green olive, remove pimento, and add stuff the olive with a good blue cheese. Repeat for 2 more olives. Place onto a toothpick, set asside.

In a Shaker that has been chilling in the freezer for at least 30 minutes, place vodka, olive juice and vermouth. Shake well, and pour into martini glass. Add olives. Enjoy!

The olives, filled with blue cheese, when drunk from the Martini are TO DIE FOR!

Croquembouche: The Ultimate Celebratory Dessert

(Reposted from December 30th post at The Entertaining House)

Image courtesy Martha Stewart

As a child who summered with her Jolie Grandmere in France, well not just France, but Cannes, I was privileged to so many wonderful experiences that most would think would be wasted on a young child. But I was not a typical young child. I was an only child living in Manhattan attending the Lycee Francais de New York on 72nd street right off Fifth. By 5 I had mastered the French language and was completely bilingual. My parents both worked and were hugely successful. My father shone in the world of banking and my mother made quite a name for herself in the world of public relations where she headed the department for the Whitney Museum long before PR was fashionable and en vogue. My mother, much like my grandmother, was ahead of the times. So this only child lived in an adult world. This is not to say that I did not have friends my age. I did and plenty of them. But I was also immersed into a very grown up and sophisticated world. And even at a young age I adored it!

That world could not be any more different than the world my children live in. The craziness of three running amok in a large house in suburbia is quite the contrast! But I wouldn't have this life any other way.

My mother and I summered in France, in Cannes, with my grandparents Bettina and Larry. I lived in the lap of luxury quite unaware that there should be any other way to live. We spent our days on the private beach club, Bijou Plage and spent the afternoon at my grandparents house up in the mountains just a few miles away. We drank tea and ate wonderful pastries. These afternoons were relaxing and almost lazy. My grandmother would read my tea leaves and make up wonderful images from the leaves that had deposited creatively along the insides of my cup. I'd swim in the pool and play with my mother and my dolls. Life could not have been more perfect. And I am pretty sure, that even in my youth, I was aware of this. My summers in France are as crystal clear today as they were yesterday.

I was a well behaved child. My grandmother worked hard on my manners the summer I was 6. At 6 she thought that I was old enough to look a grownup in the eye when spoken to, shake hands with my elders and curtsy to royalty. We practiced these skills all summer long. Yes, I met quite a few dignitary and my curtseying skills were perfected. My grandmother would reward me (read: bribe!) every time I mastered one of these skills.

When she came to visit me in New York the following fall she had a suitcase of small trinkets that were my rewards. I believe there were 21 items in all. One item, a small navy silk scarf resembling a bandana, I still have today!

Image was everything to my grandmother. Image was more than what you wore. It was how you acted and how you spoke. A smile was equally as important as the neatly combed hair, as the well pressed smocked dress and shiny black patent leather Mary Janes.

Because I was so well behaved I was allowed to accompany my parents to many wonderful restaurants. I had two favorites. One was called Vesuvius and the other was The Blue Bar. One could bring dogs into restaurants and it was not uncommon at all to see a dog lying down at the foot of his master. Bettina often brought Ballyhoo and Tipperary, her Kerry Blue Terriers.
At Vesuvius I would order Spaghetti Carbonara. The waiter would bring this great enormous bowl of pasta, and at the table would crack an egg (or was it two?) onto it and promptly mix it in. I thought this fascinating and fun. And it was delicious to boot!

But my most favorite childhood restaurant was The Blue Bar. On the famed Croisette this restaurant sat, well hustled really. I know we ate dinner before dessert but I remember nothing about the food, just the sweets. Perhaps that was because Bettina always insisted the food to be mediocre but the desserts outstanding. Perhaps we only went for dessert. I really cannot remember. What I remember were the most incredible desserts I have had in my life. I remember my first experience with Oeufs a la Neige (Eggs in Snow). This incredibly fluffy and light egg white meringue that floated so elegantly in a sea of creamy vanilla custard sauce. Incroyable!

Below is the definition per Epicurious:

floating islands
1. A light dessert of stiffly beaten, sweetened egg white mounds that have been poached in milk. These puffs are then floated in a thin CUSTARD sauce. The dessert is also known as oeufs à la neige , "snow eggs." 2. In France, île flottante ("floating island") is LIQUEUR-sprinkled sponge cake spread with jam, sprinkled with nuts, topped with whipped cream and surrounded by a pool of custard.

I had totally forgotten that it was also called Ile Flottante!

My other favorite childhood dessert is the subject of this post. I was first introduced to it at the Blue Bar, but my grandmother would create it for decades to come for festive occasion. I also served the croquembouche at my wedding in lieu of a wedding cake.

After dinner the waitstaff paraded out of the catering tent into our tent, each one carrying his own croquembouche. Each table would have their very own, and a larger, more delicate version dressed with a great big confectionary bow would make it's way to the Bride and Groom. It was a grand and dramatic entrance perfect for a grand and dramtic dessert!


Croquembouche, as defined by Epicurious:

[kroh-kuhm-BOOSH]
French for "crisp in mouth," this elaborate dessert is classically made with PROFITEROLES (tiny, custard-filled cream puffs), coated with CARAMEL and stacked into a tall pyramid shape. As the caramel hardens, it becomes crisp. For added glamour, the croquembouche can be wreathed or draped with SPUN SUGAR.

Martha Stewart has recreated the dessert to perfection. For more information and instructions, click here.

The Remains of the Day
La Jolie Grandmere with my mother with what remained
of the Croquembouche at their table!

Please note that a Croquembouche is not generally assembled on a cone as pictured above, but each Croquembouche would have been too massive for each table
and we needed some filler!

Why not serve up a Croquembouche for your new Year's Eve party? It's delightful with a lovely champagne or light and flippant prosecco!

tiny bubbles are BIG on flavor: an introdcution to Champagne and other sparkling wines

I am reprinting this from The Entertaining House... it's food related and appropriate for this blog... I'm still not back in the kitchen... enjoy!

I plan to ring in my New Year's with a bang, though not a crash!

I will ring in the New Year with some bubbly.

Most people associate champagne with New Year's Eve and other special occasions. I adore a good bubbly and drink it all the time. There are many sparkling wines to be enjoyed. Champagne is a sparkling wine, though not all sparkling wines are champagne. A sparkling beverage can only be called a champagne if the grapes are harvested in the Champagne region in France. Only grapes from this region may be called champagne. It used to be that Champagne was superior to all other sparkling wines. Luckily for us this is no longer true. There are other lovely sparkling beverages from Italy, Spain and California that are superior, delicious and often carry a much more desirable price tag.

Here's a little lesson for you all.

Many sparkling wines and all chamapgnes are made using the Methode Champanoise (Champagne method).

The Méthode Champenoise process starts by making wines, usually white. Grapes most often used are chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot gris. Usually champagne is made from a blend of grapes, but it can also be made using solely the chardonnay grape. The grapes are used to form a "cuvée", which just means a blend of wines. Blending is considered by most experienced winemakers to be the key to the art of méthode champenoise.

Once the cuvee has been formed the creating the tiny, delicate bubbles is the next order of business. They are produced by a natural process in the best Champagnes. A "liquer de tirage"(a mixture of yeast and sugar) is added to the cuvée, bottled, stoppered, and laid up "en tirage" to trap the carbon dioxide gas produced by the yeast as it consumes its food-- the sugar.

When the yeast has consumed all of the sugar and produced the coveted natural tiny CO₂ bubbles the now carbonated wine will clear and leave a deposit of yeast. It is now ready for "riddling".

A-framed racks called "riddling racks" house the bottles as a process known as "remuage" takes place. Remuage is a slow and laborious process of dropping the yeast deposit into the neck of the bottle, is performed over several weeks to several months.

When the Champagne is yeast-free, a little sugar can be added to offset the dryness of the disgorged Champagne. The amount determines the sweetness, or the lack of it preserves the natural dryness of the Champagne. Most Champagnes tend to be quite acidic. Dry BRUT is very slightly sweetened, but is still drier than a so-called "Extra Dry," which is really not at all dry. DEMI-SEC is slightly sweet, and our DOUX is medium sweet and luscious.

This is the oldest and most traditional way to make sparkling wine. It was supposedly developed by Dom (Pierre) Perignon, a Benedictine Monk in the Champagne district of France, born in1638, and is known as Méthode Champenoise.

Other methods cost a good deal less and are less labor and time intensive. These apply to Cavas and Proseccos. The Cava is a sparkling wine that hails from Spain, and the Prosecco hails from Italy. Prosecco is made by utilizing the Metodo Italiano, otherwise known as the Charmat process.

The Charmat, Metodo Charmat-Martinotti (or Metodo Italiano) hails from Italy, but developed by a French man, where it was invented and is most used. Here wine undergoes secondary fermentation in stainless steel tanks or steel vessels covered with vitreous enamel rather than individual bottles, and is bottled under pressure in a continuous process. Many grape varieties, including Prosecco, are best suited for fermentation in tanks. Charmat method sparkling wines can be produced at a slightly lower cost than méthode champenoise wine.

This method follows the first steps of "methode champenoise" in that after primary fermentation the cuvee is transferred to bottle to complete secondary fermentation. When the secondary fermentation is complete and the wine has spent the desired amount of time in bottle on yeast lees (six months is the requirement to label a wine 'bottle fermented') then the individual bottles are transferred (hence the name) into a larger tank. The wine is then filtered, the liqueur de dosage (sugar solution) added, and then filled back into new bottles for sale. This method allows for complexity to be built into the wine, but also gives scope for blending options after the wine has gone into bottle.

So there is your mini lesson. Interesting, isn't it?

I adore Champagne. Likewise I have found other good bubbly that I adore just as well. With a lower price tag I can enjoy a nice bubbly throughout the year with no reason whatsoever!

In the past Champagne was really considered to be the only sparkling beverage to drink. But there are many wonderful alternatives to try. And I do suggest you have fun and try them all!

For a special moment, or if you really feel like splurging you can never go wrong with the following Champagnes:

The original methode, Dom is as good as it gets! The $150 price tag means that most of us can only enjoy this for the most special of occasions.


About $125 a bottle, this fabulous champagne makes a wonderful gift for a truly special occasion. The hand painted bottle is a treasure in itself.


For less than $50, and often around the $40 this champagne is reasonably affordable. It is also one of my absolute favorites and most likely what I will be sipping on New Year's Eve!

It's no secret that I love Prosecco. Here is a little more about Italy's contribution to the sparkling wine.

Except for the bubbles, Prosecco has no similarity to Champagne. It's as different from Champagne as Sauvignon Blanc is from Chardonnay. Champagne is yeasty and serious. Prosecco is fresh, fruity and flippant. (I'm fresh, fruity and flippant too! We make a perfect pairing!) Champagne, especially vintage Champagne, is meant to age. Prosecco should be consumed as young as possible. Prosecco is rarely vintage-dated and when it is, the specific year carries no special significance. Brut Champagne (the driest) outshines Extra-Dry Champagne (Extra Dry, paradoxically, is sweeter than Brut despite its name). The opposite is true for Prosecco. Even Prosecco labeled Brut has a touch more sweetness than Brut Champagne. In addition to being a great aperitif, Prosecco is a wonderful "celebratory" drink and an excellent choice for spicy Asian food.

Prosecco is the name of both the grape and the wine. But as with most Italian wines, matters rapidly get more complicated. The grape's 'natural habitat' is a series of hills in between the towns of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene in the Veneto, just North of Venice. The hills are key because the elevation-900 to 1300 feet-of the vineyards results in excellent day-night temperature differences that enhance the engaging floral character of the grapes and hence, the wine.

Above are three wonderful and highly rated bottles of Prosecco. All are priced between $10 and $20 which makes it possible to be enjoyed frequently. The Rustico is one of my personal favorites.

Perhaps you would like to dress up your Prosecco. Well, Prosecco was the original sparkling wine used for Italy's famed Peach Bellini!


The Bellini is a famous champagne cocktail created by Giuseppe Cipriani, proprietor of Harry's Bar in Venice. Cipriani named his drink after Giovanni Bellini, his favorite Italian painter, because the color of the champagne cocktail matched the color Bellini used in one of his paintings for a saint's toga. The Bellini has become one of the most famous and popular of all wine cocktails or champagne cocktails. It's also difficult to make because of the scarcity of pureed peaches.

We served these at my wedding. Perfect for my light, fruity and flippant personality!

For a Basic, Traditional Bellini Recipe

You will need:
2 parts (4oz) extra dry sparkling wine
2oz) peach puree (approximately 1 pureed peach)
Mix:
Pour the peach puree at the bottom of a champagne flute.
Add a dash or two of grenadine or raspberry puree on the top, if you want.
Gently pour dry sparkling wine to full the glass.
Not to be shaken or stirred!


And one final tip for you all!

How to preserve your Champagne once you have already opened your bottle:

If you find yourself wanting to open a bottle of bubbly but you know that you won't finish it in the same night you can trap the bubbles so that you can enjoy your beverage for up to 36 hours after uncorking!

All you need is a piece of Saran Wrap and a good rubber band.

Simply place the plastic wrap over the mouth of the bottle and seal tightly. You will instantly see it rise. The air and bubbles have now been trapped. Using a rubber band, secure the plastic wrap in place as tightly as possible. Place the bottle back into the refrigerator for later consumption!

My grandmother, La Jolie Grandmere, taught me this trick and it works like a charm! It is absolutely fool proof!


Happy New Year Everyone! I hope you enjoy your tiny bubbles!


The above information was made possible from the following websites: Wikipedia, WineSparkle, Wine Intro, A Taste of Wine, and Micheal Apstein's article on Prosecco for Wine Review Online

Happy Birthday to Moi! Champagne Mojito

This might very well be the most fabulous beverage ever... E-ver!

To make this Sparkling Champagne Mojito you will need:

1/8 Cup of white rum
3-4 tbs of simple syrup

3 slices of lime

1 tsp crushed mint leaves
ice
1/2 Cup Champagne or Proseco

In a small bowl crush mint and lime with the simple syrup
Pour into Champagne Flute
Add rum, ice if necessary and fill remainder of flute with champagne

Sip, enjoy, sip some more....

Cheers!

The Parker

I've named this after my friend Lisa's daughter who turns 8 today, the day before my Birthday... so I decided that I would start my celebration a little early... I cracked open the bubbly and made myself a big girl Shirley Temple!

What a fabulous drink!
If you'd like to drink along, you'll need (per glass):

Some champagne or proseco
2 tbs grenadine
a few cherries, cut in half and pitted

Macerate cherries in the grenadine for a few minutes, then pour 2 tbs of the grenadine into a champagne flute, add a few cherries and fill to the top with champagne or proseco.

Cheers!