A Toast to the Holidays / “Poire et Jacques, Y’all”

November 26, 2011August 13, 2013 ~ Teresa Blackburn ~ 29 Comments

” Poire et Jacques, Y’all”

Thanksgiving really began at our house one week before November 24th. Thursday, November 18th to be exact.

The Third Thursday Potluck was that evening & called for something special to take along as it was the last Third Thursday Potluck of 2011. A special cocktail/tonic has become my regular potluck dish. I have made many cocktails to take to this wonderful monthly dinner hosted by my friend and fellow blogger Nancy Vienneau (www.goodfoodmatters.com) and my friend, Gigi Gaskins owner and fabulous hat maker at “HatWRKS” (check it out on Facebook).

I wanted this holiday cocktail to contain ingredients that represent my geographical place as well as a Southern based liquor & be wintry. This recipe, which is a Toast to the Holidays and an Ode to Winter, is one I hope you will try. On warmer fall days like we have been having here in Nashville it was perfect over ice, but as the days become chillier it is very cozy served hot and I am sure it has medicinal properties that will ward off colds & flu during the holidays. I could not think of a name for my concoction….Wouter came up with the perfect name don’t you think?

Ingredients: (for about 2 quarts for a party)

6 cups Pear Cider

2 cups Jack Daniels Tennessee Honey Whiskey

1 cup Pear Liqueur

2 TBSP Ginger Jam or Preserves

Mix all ingredients together in a large container.

Add one or two whole peeled winter pears to a pitcher. Pour cocktail mixture over pears and chill until ready to serve. (Later these pears will make a very nice dessert)

You can make this cocktail ahead of time and keep refrigerated over the holidays to have on hand ready to serve when the moment calls for a relaxing drink with friends. Add a few crispy pear slices and a small teaspoon of ginger jam to each glass whether serving cold or hot.

The remainder of my week between the Third Thursday & the Fourth Thursday of November was a bit of a blur. This was not due to imbibing to much Poire Jacques by the way!

There were calls to work out-of-town, calls to work in town, shoots booked, cancelled and rebooked, recipe development & testing to be done, a food video shoot in my kitchen on Wednesday so by Thanksgiving day I had already cooked & styled 2 pork loins with fruit stuffing, baked some yummy chocolate cookies, Wisconsin cherry scones & cupcakes with a buttercream frosting, pie crusts, pies, roasted red bell peppers and a garden greens saute, and that is just part of the list. We had bid happy holidays to our grown children going to Wisconsin & Knoxville to visit relatives and taken in our grandson’s Jack Russell, Bill to spend a few days with our dog Ella.

Our Thanksgiving was a day of walking dogs in crunchy, colorful fall leaves, watching four “Boardwalk Empire’s” back-to-back, going to see “Descendents” at the movies, stopping by to see the progress on an inn our friends John and Liz are getting ready to open here in Nashville, eating big bowls of Perciatelli with MeatBalls & Red Sauce along with some red wine and being thankful for all of this and more.

“A Quick Sweet/Savory Breakfast Frittata with Pears & Blackberries” (for the folks working on the video at my house to enjoy)

Ingredients:

One sheet of puff pastry slightly thawed

4 slices of good sharp white cheddar

2 cups thinly sliced hard pears

1 cup fresh blackberries

4 eggs whisked with 1/2 cup cream, 4 ounces softened cream cheese & 1 tbsp raw or brown sugar

Extra raw sugar for sprinkling on top

Maple syrup for drizzling on top of servings

Directions:

Turn oven to 375 degrees. Butter a 10 inch cast iron skillet. Line skillet with sheet of puff pastry.

Arrange cheddar slices over bottom of pastry & top with pear slices. Pour egg-cream mixture over pear slices and sprinkle with blackberries & raw sugar.

Bake until puffy & golden brown and until eggs are set in the middle. Remove from oven & let sit for a few minutes before serving. Sprinkle with a bit more sugar. Drizzle with maple syrup.

The crispy-flakiness of the puff pastry along with the naturally sweetness of the fruit, the savory egg & cheddar cheese topped with a bit of sweet maple syrup & the crunch of raw sugar makes for the perfect quick breakfast that is not cloying sweet nor too savory.

“A Little Seasonal Gallery of Fun”

Spring Green Tonics

March 19, 2011 ~ Teresa Blackburn ~ 9 Comments

“Spring Tonic”

To celebrate Daylight Savings Time, St. Patrick’s Day and the Spring Equinox

On the third Thursday evening of each month I attend a dinner hosted by friends, Nancy Vienneau and Gigi Gaskins. It is appropriately called “Third Thursday” and is a potluck dinner party made up of many folks whose common love of interesting, healthy, local foods is the common thread.

March’s Third Thursday Dinner fell on St. Patrick’s Day. As you can imagine there were lots of dishes honoring “green”. Spinach, green beans, basil, avocado dishes were plentiful. For this occasion I created a “Spring Tonic”. With cucumbers & lime juice as the main ingredients this “tonic” was the essence of “all things green”.

This tonic is easy to make, beautiful, refreshing, not too sweet and is like drinking a glass of spring.

What you will need:

To make approximately 1/2 gallon of Spring Tonic:

About 8 fresh cucumbers, 5 or 6 limes juiced, a piece of fresh ginger, 1 to 1.5 cups of raw sugar, 2 to 3 cups of your favorite white rum, about 1 cup of Midori liqueur and seltzer water or club soda. (Adjust to taste as you mix.)

Trim and peel cucumbers. Scrape seeds out with a spoon. Cut into chunks and place in food processor. You may have to do this in batches. Process until cucumbers are pureed with no chunks. Pour puree into a colander lined with two layers of cheesecloth or into a fine sieve sitting over a bowl to catch the cucumber juice. Use a rubber scraper to press the puree through the cheesecloth to get out most of the liquid.

When finished you should have about 3 cups of liquid.

This color of green is so beautiful like spring grass.

To make Gingered Simple Syrup: Peel ginger & cut into slices. Place ginger pieces, raw sugar + 1.2 cups of water in a saucepan over medium high heat. Bring to a low boil, cook for about 5 minutes, stirring often. Remove from heat to cool.

As I was taking my Spring Tonic to a dinner party I made labels for two 1 qt containers to share the ingredients with guests.

To mix Spring Tonic:

Into each 1 quart container add half of the Cucumber liquid, half of the Midori, half of the fresh Lime Juice, half of the Gingered Simple Syrup with ginger pieces & half of the White Rum. Stir mixture in each container until well mixed. Cover and chill until ready to drink.

To Drink: Place ice in a glass, pour in some Spring Tonic & add a splash of seltzer water, club soda or mineral water with gas.

….. evening of greens….

While concocting your own “Spring Tonic” you could enjoy some music by the band “Tonic”. Check them out on itunes for a listen.

A Herbal tonic is used to help restore, tone and invigorate systems in the body or to promote general health and well-being.

“get your motor running….drink Spring tonics!”

Mellow Yellow Limoncello

July 12, 2010January 26, 2013 ~ Teresa Blackburn ~ 9 Comments

Again it is time to bottle up my next batch of limoncello that has already steeped in lemon peel, been strained, had a simple syrup added and has been in a closet for over 3 weeks with the flavors melding! This is my 3rd year for making limoncello. Each batch has been a little different from the last, but they have all been very good. I attribute the deliciousness to the quality of the lemons and the simplicity of the recipe(s) I have been using. I am done much experimenting, but always use as the base recipe the one I found a few years ago in this book….

The Limoncello recipe in this book is similar to many you can find online or in other cookbooks, but this was the one I ran across when I made my first batch which turned out so well that I have stuck with it over the years. This is the recipe I use……..

Sometimes I use Meyer Lemons, sometimes other lemons, always yummy!

Bottling Day………..

I got this nifty red bottle capper at All Season’s on 8th Avenue So. here in Nashville along with the bottles & caps. All were really inexpensive and made the process of bottling much more streamlined. No more searching for miscellaneous bottles with matching caps that leaked! I bought this capper with the help of Jennifer who knows just about everything there is to know about bottle cappers and such! She said it would work great and it did. Very simple and easy to use. I felt so professional!

We like it chilled or frozen & slushy! Salute!

“eat, drink Kuala Lumpur, Melaka & Penang – the photo story continues… ”

April 22, 2010May 31, 2010 ~ Teresa Blackburn ~ Leave a comment

Humid, Verdant landscape, food hawkers in abundance, the sea with its rocky shore, palm oil palms, coconut palms, little delicious meals and icy lemon tea throughout the day, temple visits, traditional wood houses, Little India, Chinatown, spice garden, markets, cold coconut water……