Once I make a pot of soup, all I really want to do is to make another.

Yesterday it was cauliflower soup, today it’s broccoli and spinach. Tomorrow… ooh, chunky corn chowder sounds yummy!

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Have you seen or tried the packages of cauliflower rice that are all the rage? I picked up a 2-pack at Costco recently to give it a try. I used one package as intended, as a side dish, and honestly, I don’t know what all the fuss is about. If you know of a stand-out recipe, please let me know.

I decided to use the second package for soup. You can never go wrong with soup!

Initially, I thought I’d roast the cauliflower rice for the soup, I had it all spread out on a baking sheet, but then I decided to roast a bulb of fennel I had instead and leave the cauliflower as is. The thought process here was, “I don’t want to have to keep checking on the little cauliflower bits and worry about them burning.” Laziness wins!

Roasted cauliflower or not, this is one delicious tummy-warming soup.

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In my recent post about canned vegetables, I encouraged you to share your own childhood food nightmare stories. After Lori shared her story about hiding Brussels sprouts in her bedroom dresser and Amy shared about having to sit at Girl Scout camp with an ever-growing brick of Shredded Wheat in front of her, while her friends went on a hike, I knew I had to share my ultimate childhood food nightmare with you.

This is the house I grew up in. All my childhood food nightmares happened in this house. The majority of those nightmares occurred in the mornings of the late fall and winter months. Summer, spring, and early fall weren’t much better.

Breakfast, which is now one of my favorite and most reliable meals, was the dreaded meal for my younger self. The source of the dread was cereal. I really do not like cereal. I never have and I never will!

On a typical day, our cupboards held only three types of cold cereal; Cheerios, Rice Krispies, and Corn Flakes. For readers who are far younger than I, let me educate you: this was before Frosted Corn Flakes, before Cocoa Krispies, and before Honey-Nut Cheerios. Brands such as Trix, Lucky Charms, and Cocoa Puffs were available, just not in our house.

Looking back, I have to look back because I haven’t had a bowl of cereal since I moved out of my parents’ home! Anyhow, looking back, I think what I hated about cereal was that it got soggy quickly and the milk was never cold enough. The warming milk and disintegrating cereal, especially the Corn Flakes, was beyond disgusting to me. I literally couldn’t stomach it.

My first choice was always Cheerios, I’d put as little in my bowl as allowed, add the milk and try to shove it down as fast as possible before the milk warmed and the Cheerios had a chance to even think of sinking to the bottom of the bowl. My goal was to get to them while they were floating.

The second choice, when the Cheerios were gone, was Rice Krispies. The same deal here, try to shovel them in before they could snap, crackle, or pop more than a couple of times.

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In yesterday’s post, I spoke of my childhood trauma with canned vegetables and encouraged you to share childhood food stories of your own. Lori and Amy obliged and shared both hilarious and horrifying stories. Thank you! I laughed and cringed at the same time. The best part – bits of each of your stories are parts of my hot cereal story, so now I’m going to have to share it!

Not today though. In my next post, I promise.

Today, I’m going to give you a recipe that will use up extra horseradish root you may have after making the fresh horseradish sauce that went with Wednesday’s beef brisket recipe. I had a big piece of horseradish root left, so something needed to be done with it.

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When I was growing up, we very seldom had fresh vegetables. No frozen vegetables either. Canned vegetables, that’s what we ate.

There was the occasional fresh corn on the cob, fresh tomatoes, potatoes, and of course, lettuce – mostly iceberg. But tinny-tasting canned veggies were king at our house.

• Canned peas (mushy with an unappetizing dull green-gray in color)
• Canned green beans (ditto)
• Canned beets (I can’t even!)
• Canned lima beans (Please, NO!)
• Canned spinach (especially tinny, watery, and gray-green)
• Canned carrots (the worst of them all!)
• Canned corn (this is the only one that I will eat today – I admit to  a strange weakness for canned cream corn)

Exceptions: Canned beans (pinto, black, kidney, etc.) and canned tomatoes – these are allowed in my pantry and in my cooking. Although I’m always using them as a component in a dish, not just heating them up and eating them as is.

It goes without saying, that I hated most vegetables throughout my childhood and into early adulthood. And it took years to get up the courage to taste fresh versions of those canned nightmares.

It took decades longer to try “exotic” (think asparagus, Brussels sprouts, and the like) vegetables. Today, I love almost all vegetables. The only holdouts that I still can’t acquire a taste for are beets (taste like dirt to me) and carrots. I know, carrots, of all things, but I still don’t like them cooked or even raw.

I didn’t have my first Brussels sprout until 1999 or 2000 and I didn’t see them fresh on the stalk until 2013 when I posted this recipe. Seriously, I never had seen them on the stalk before that day when I walked into Trader Joe’s and there was that strange-looking thing!  Now they are one of my favorite, especially roasted, as in this easy side dish.

**Please feel free to share any of your childhood “food nightmares” in the comments section. I have more, a real whopper of a tale involving hot cereals.

* After all, that nightmare talk, let me say that growing up in Scottsdale wasn’t all that bad. I mean when you wake up to a sunrise like this, you know that life is nothing but good!

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It’s been raining cats and dogs in our desert for the last couple of days. Nothing tastes better or is more welcoming on a cold and rainy day than beef brisket!

This classic brisket is a family favorite. I found the original recipe nearly 30 years ago in The Silver Palate New Basics cookbook and have adapted the recipe over the years.

Basic Beef Brisket with Fresh Horseradish Sauce

• 6 pounds beef brisket, trimmed of most excess fat
• Kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 6 large onions, peeled and sliced
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 bottle beer
• 3 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon sweet chili sauce
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
• 1 large carrot, peeled and diced

Horseradish Sauce

• 1 cup and finely grated fresh horseradish root (peel first and use a Microplane to grate)
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 cup crème fraîche or sour cream
• Pinch of salt

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At last, the end of recipes from the 2016 Holiday Appetizer Pot-Luck.

Marissa made my famous Caesar Dip, the recipe can be found HERE. Near the end of the evening, I set out bowls and platters of holiday sweets and desserts I’d purchased at Trader Joe’s, alongside the coffee and cocoa bar.

Before I share the last recipe, let me tell you the joke I made up about it…

The original name for this recipe was Bacon Crack, which seems a bit crass, so I’ve since changed it to Bacon Candy.

I made the recipe the morning of the party. I tasted it and didn’t think it was all that great. Come party time, I put it in the serving dish and told guests, “It’s called Bacon Crack, but it’s not all that it’s ‘cracked up’ to be.” Haha.

Funny thing was, everyone loved it. I tasted it again and they were right, it was boatloads better once it cooled completely and sat around for a few hours.

I apologize that it has taken a while to post the 10 recipes from a Christmas Eve Eve party. (To easily find them all in one place, just click on the link in the first sentence of this post and it will take you to them)

The good news is that here on the blog, 2016 finally ends and next week, 2017 begins!

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This recipe came straight from the Pepperidge Farm website. And I have to confess, so did the photo. The picture I took was too blurry to use.

My beautiful friend and neighbor, Lisa, made it and topped hers with an adorable puff pastry candy cane in place of the poinsettia you see pictured here. What’s not to love?! Cheese, puff pastry, almonds, and dried cranberries. Yum!

Tomorrow I’ll finally wrap up with the last recipe and some final thoughts from the 2016 Holiday Appetizer Pot-Luck.

Photo

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We’re closing in on the last of the 2016 Holiday Appetizer Pot-Luck recipes.

Kim made this one and totally changed the recipe I’d sent out and made it all her own… no surprise there.

Instead of making the cream cheese mixture the recipe called for, Kim used Boursin. Use any flavor you prefer.

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Recipe #6 from the 2016 Holiday Appetizer Pot-Luck is rich and creamy and what I’d call decadent. In other words, stick to the crudités if you’re watching your fat intake! Then again, this was served during the holidays, certainly, a taste can’t hurt.

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