I confess to being a huge fan of chicken wings. Back home at the local Chinese buffet the chicken wings were always my favourite dish on the menu, and I think everyone else's as well because between them and the sweet and sour chicken balls it was always hard to get any because the dish would empty almost as soon as it was filled!
This delicious casserole is the perfect way to use up some of the leftovers from your Christas dinner, using up some of the turkey (of course) stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, etc. It's delicious and there is also cheese in the mix. Oh but it is some good!
Merry Christmas
From
The English Kitchen
Many thanks for your loyalty over
the past year, your lovely comments,
and
your faith in my culinary abilities.
Thanks also for sticking with me throughout
the good, the bad and the ugly!
May your holiday be filled with lots of love,
family, great friends, good food, good health
and
more blessings than
your cup can hold.
Catch you on the flip side!
I love Eggs Benedict. Its such a simple dish and yet at the same time it feels so special . . toasted english muffin topped with some bacon, an egg and hollandaise sauce.
Yum! Normally it calls for a perfectly poached egg, but this version I am showing you today is simpler than that. It uses softly scrambled eggs, and it is delicious!
This is the perfect holiday morning breakfast!
Toasting English muffins beneath a grill . . . simple. Check.
Grilling some back bacon . . . simple. Check.
Topping the bacon on the muffin . . . delicious softly scrambled eggs.
So simple to do, and so very tasty. It's easy to do the whole lot all at once. Check.
A final gilding of Hollandaise sauce . . . not so simple to do, unless of course you buy it ready made. I had some lovely ready made pouches from Christian Potier and they worked very well.
But if you want to make an easy hollandaise from scratch, blender hollandaise is the way to go. There is a great recipe on Simply Recipes. This is the one I use. Its easy to follow and always turns out. Check.
If you like Eggs Benedict as much as I like Eggs Benedict you will be in Eggs Benedict heaven with this. Your family will love this and you will love the ease of creating it.
It makes the perfect Christmas morning holiday breakfast. Or any special occasion breakfast for that matter!
Elegant, delicious, and yet . . . so very simple.
*Scrambled Eggs Benedict*
Serves 4
Now where is my fork . . . . mmmm . . . . Bon Appetit!
Note: If you can't find a jar of good Hollandaise sauce there is a really fabulous recipe to make your own quick and easy Hollandaise sauce here that I highly recommend!
The house is all spic and span for Christmas. I have all of the food in that I am going to need for our dinner. All my gifts are out and all that remains to do now is a few bits and bobs and last minute things. Whew!
I can relax, knowing that all is in hand. With that in mind I took advantage of there not being any pressure on and baked a few goodies that I had seen on Pinterest or the web and had wanted to try for the holidays.
Tasty goodies like these Italian Christmas Biscotti which I saw weeks ago on a blog called The Merchant Baker.
I first saw them on Pinterest and they immediately caught my eye because of their name. Biscotti. But Biscotti are crisp dunking Italian biscuits are they not? I love Biscotti!
These are not those type of Biscotti. I was intrigued and pinned them into my Italian Treats board with the idea in mind to make them one day. Today was that day. (As I am writing this on Thursday.)
These are very similar to a sugar cookie, but there is no rolling or cutting. Well . . . I say that, but you do have to roll the dough into ropes and cut it into lengths before twisting it into that lovely looking shape you see here.
(If you check out the Merchant Bakers page she gives an excellent tutorial on how to do just that and there are videos.)
Another thing which impressed me was that they looked incredibly easy to make. And I was not wrong.
These are an easy cookie and they end up looking so pretty when they are done. You just make the dough, shape and bake.
Once cooled you then dip them in a very simple vanilla icing glaze and sprinkle with coloured sprinkles.
Easy peasy, lemon squeasy. And they are so pretty, don't you think?
Another plus . . . the recipe was very easy to cut in thirds. Since there are only two of us and we can only eat so much, I wanted to cook only a third of the recipe.
I got approximately 16 delicious cookies. Little sweet pillows of Italian perfection. The perfect cookie to bake at the last minute for the holidays!
*Italian Christmas Biscotti*
Makes 4 to 5 dozen 
To make one third of the recipe or only 16 cookies you will need:
1/4 cup butter (65g)
3 TBS icing sugar
4 TBS granulated sugar
1 large free range egg
1 cup plain flour (140g)
1/4 tsp baking powder
few drops vanilla
For the glaze:
3/4 cup icing sugar (98g)
1/2 TBS water
drop of vanilla
This is a really, really nice cookie. I can see all sorts of possiblities here. I think another time I make them I might add a touch of lemon zest to the dough and some lemon juice to the glaze instead of water. Then they would be lemon drizzle biscotti. Yum! Bon Appetit!
Todd loves cooked apples. If I bake anything with apples at all, my husband is one very happy camper.
He says his mother baked the best apple pies ever. I have never been able to make an apple pie quite like his mom's, but a gal can't be good at everything I guess!
Even so, he enjoys the ones I do make, even if they are not quite as good . . . likewise the apple cakes, muffins, baked apples, applesauce, etc. that I make for him.
He really enjoyed these apple dumplings that I made this afternoon for afters.
If there's one thing that he enjoys almost as much as apple desserts, if not more, it's custard! This lovely recipe combines those two favourite things.
You get rich and flakey apple dumplings . . . a buttery crust spread with cinnamon sugar and wrapped around an apple quarter, then partially baked . . . but that's not all . . . no . . .
You then slather the partially baked dumplings with a rich and creamy almond custard, top them with some flaked almonds and some more cinnamon, and bake them until the dumplings are scrummily golden brown and the custard is puffed up all around them!!!
Oh my, but these did smell heavenly when they are baking and if the satisfied look on my husband's face was anything to go by while he was eating . . . they are also quite, quite decadently delicious to eat.
Of course he had his along with some pouring cream. It is the English way to do it, and why not!!
*Almond and Custard Apple Dumplings*
Serves 6
Printable Recipe
Delicious apple dumplings that bake in their very own almond custard. Easy and delicious!
For the Dumplings:
2 TBS golden caster sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 (250g) tin of refrigerated Croissant rolls dough
(separates into 6 rolls. Ready Roll makes them and the are in the
chiller section of the grocery store near the ready roll pastry)
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled and cored
For the Custard:
3.5 ounces golden caster sugar (1/2 vup)
4 fluid ounces of double cream (1/2 cup)
1 large free range egg
2 tsp almond essence
To top:
1.5 ounces flaked almonds (1/2 cup)
ground cinnamon
Preheat the oven to 190*C/375*F/ gas mark 5. Butter a 9 inch round baking dish. Set aside.
Cut the apples into quarters. Stir together the 2 TBS of caster sugar and the 1 tsp ground cinnamon. Unroll the croissant dough, separating it into 6 triangles. Flatten each one somewhat and then sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar, gently pressing it in, and holding back about 1 tsp of the mixture. Put an apple quarter onto the wide end of each triangle. (You will have two leftover, but don't worry about that yet.) Tuck in the edges around the apple and then begin to roll it up, starting at the wide end and rolling to the opposite point. Place into the prepared baking dish, tip side down, in a circle. There will be some space between and in the middle. Cut the remaining apple quarters into chunks. Toss with the remaining cinnamon sugar. Put a few of these into the centre and several in between each filled croissant.
Bake in the preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown.
In the meantime whisk together the egg, sugar, cream and almond essence for the custard, making sure it is well mixed and the sugar dissolves.
At the end of the first baking take the dish from the oven. Pour the custard mixture evenly over top of the partially baked rolls. Sprinkle the flaked almonds over top and then dust with more cinnamon. Return to the oven and bake for an additional 13 to 18 minutes, until a deep golden brown. If you feel it is browning too quickly you can cover it with some foil.
Serve warm and store any leftovers in the refrigerator.
These are just fabulous. Bon Appetit!
This is a tasty little gem I clipped from an old issue of Good Food Magazine yonks ago! It looked fabulously delicious and very simple to make. As you know I can be rather lazy sometimes and simple and delicious are what works best for me!
(source)
The race is on now for me to develop a tasty trifle recipe for my Christmas lunch this year. Other years I have done different versions such as:
Turkish Delight Trifle Very good and very sweet. Not for the faint of heart or those who are not fond of Turkish Delight.
When I was growing up in the 50's and 60's about the only fresh fruit that made a regular appearance in our house was apples and bananas. Fresh fruit really wasn't all that available in our small town . . . and I expect if it was, it was probably really expensive. We didn't mind that much though . . . my mother always made sure we had lots of tinned fruit.
One thing my mother always made at least once during the holidays was peanut butter fudge. It was never chocolate or any other kind . . . always peanut butter, but we didn't mind because we loved it so very much. It was a real treat!
Two of my children had birthday's in December. One on the eighth and the other on the ninth. I always tried to make each of my children special cakes for their birthdays, and as you can imagine having two birthdays two days in a row, this sometimes presented a bit of a challenge. I used to bake this Ruby Slipper Cake for my youngest daughter's birthday (the ninth) each year. This was Amanda's cake. Some years I dressed it up to look like a wreath in honor of December. It was always a lovely cake that we all enjoyed very much.
We are real soup lovers in this house. I don't think I have ever met a soup I did not like and neither has Todd. There is a cafe at the market in town that does lovely bowls of soup and for a really good price. Todd just loves to treat himself to a bowl when he goes into town in the winter.
This is a great soup for cold and windy days and a great soup for using up what is in the vegetable bin. You can vary the vegetables according to whatever you have on hand.
This is hearty and delicious. Today I used carrots, swede, celery, onion, leeks, cabbage . . . and I might even have added a splash of tomato juice. I can't remember. But if I did it was only a splash.
The barley makes it especially hearty. I do so love barley or rice in a soup, don't you?
You could add a handful of dried peas as well if you wanted to. They would go very well. In any case this basic recipe can be a canvas for you to work upon and create your own speciality!
*Hearty Vegetable Soup*
Serves 4 to 6
a few handfuls of chopped cabbage
3 large cloves of garlic, crushed
1 1/2 litres chicken or vegetable stock (about 6 1/2 cups)
60g of uncooked pearl barley (1/3 cup)
Heat the olive oil and butter together in a large saucepan. Add all of
the vegetables except for the garlic. Stir to coat. Sweat over low
heat, stirring occasionally, for about 15 minutes, until beginning to
soften. Add the garlic and thyme. Cook for a few minutes longer. Add
the stock along with some seasoning. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a
simmer. Simmer for about 10 minutes. Stir in the barley. Simmer
gently for about half an hour until the barley is cooked. Taste and
adjust seasoning with salt and black pepper as desired. Serve hot with
some crusty bread.
(Don't forget to fish out and discard the thyme stalk!)
Todd has his with a roll. The Canadian in my loves it with crackers and the commoner in me likes them crumbled over top like croutons. ☺
Happy Friday and Bon Appetit!
We are not partakers of red meat very often. When we do it is usually in the form of a roast or pork chops, sometimes a stew . . . sausages. Maybe we might have red meat about once every two weeks if that. Todd does love a good chop and he adores this BBQ Pork that I make from time to time. Its done in the oven, not on the BBQ, but it has a lovely spicy rub and I serve it with a zingy sauce for dipping!
We are a small family, Todd and I. Just the two of us and our Mitzie Doodle doggie who isn't supposed to eat human food. After having cooked for a huge family for many years, I now find myself facing the challenge of cooking for just the two of us. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind leftovers and I am an expert at using them up and making them interesting, but dishes built for two are also a good way to go in my kitchen.
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