For me, side dishes on big holidays are the hardest. I want to do something new each time and yet sometimes I feel limited.  Strange, I know, with the amazing variety and selection of produce these days, but true all the same. Well, this side is perfect for Christmas…it carries through the red and green theme and is a crowd-pleaser too. The vinaigrette is great in summer or winter and goes great with greens for a delicious fresh salad and equally great with about every vegetable under the sun.
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I made these easy and pretty grapes for the first time about 15 years ago for a holiday open house. They are a perennial favorite. The cheese and nut-coated grapes make such a stunning presentation when placed on a pedestal with fresh grapes and leaves and are perfect to set on a bar at a party.

Since there are only 4 ingredients this recipe certainly qualifies for my “easy-breezy” category and if you have kids around, they will love helping make them. If you are putting them together alone, use one hand to roll or lightly coat the grapes with the cheese mixture and keep the other hand clean to roll the cheese-coated grapes in the nuts and place them on a plate, otherwise, you’ll end up with a gooey mess.
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I’m hosting a dinner party tonight and will be serving another of Jennifer Markett’s scrumptious dishes. She calls them cigars, but after making them today, I’d rename them stogies, look at the picture and tell me what you think. Since I’m serving a large variety of appetizers, I’m only going to make half a batch of these. When a recipe calls for 1 egg and you need only half an egg, crack the egg into a bowl and beat well, 1 large egg equals about 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons). So use only 2 tablespoons of beaten egg, and for this particular recipe, save the remaining 2 tablespoons for brushing the wonton wrappers.

When assembling a number of the same thing, it’s easiest to do it assembly-line style… layout about half of the won ton wrappers (they dry too quickly to do all at once) and top each with the filling.  Brush with the egg one at a time, or it too will dry out or begin to stick to the counter, and roll.

My hope is that all the recent and upcoming appetizer recipes will help with your holiday party planning. After all, Christmas is now less than 3 weeks away … take a deep breath, stay calm, and have fun with your holiday entertaining.
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These stuffed peppers are my idea of delicious and classy “poppers” and are a Christmas tradition in our house. The pink salmon against the green pepper looks great on a holiday buffet.

This past July I made these for Jeff and Jen while we were spending a week at their amazing lakeside log cabin in Northern Wisconsin. It’s hard to call it a cabin, because it’s such a big beautiful home filled with rustic and classic décor, happy kids running about, great food, and tons of fun! I call it The Log Mansion. Plus, to get out of our 110+ degree heat in July and relax in the cool pines with great friends… truly a slice of heaven on earth!

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Today is my gorgeous girlfriend, Jen’s, birthday. I cannot begin to express how much I love this amazing woman; she is my rock, my soul-mate sister, my “on-demand” comedian, and my friend.  She can make me laugh like nobody’s business! She is there through thick and thin and is a loving friend, mother, wife, sister, aunt, and daughter. Whenever I have something to share, complain about, need help, advice, or just want to chat, Jen is the first person I call.

The one really awful thing about Jennifer? She lives 1,400 miles from me (as the crow flies). Happy birthday, Jenny Jen, I forgive you for that one awful thing and love you unconditionally!

For the rest of the week, I will highlight and share recipes from Jen, who is coincidentally, a great cook, or recipes of mine that are favorites of hers. Today’s recipe is a fun and quite a rich appetizer pizza that is perfect for upcoming holiday parties.

My girl, Jen

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It’s been 2 weeks since Halloween and I still have candy around the house… this is not a good thing! Maybe your kids still have candy and you want to do away with it, or like me, you have extra candy you didn’t give out and now you’re sneaking a piece every day and just wish it would disappear and not to your hips. Why not put it to good use for your Christmas baking? These cookies freeze well and the recipe can be cut in half or even doubled depending on how much candy you need to get rid of. If you don’t have Nutella on hand, just use a full cup of peanut butter, although the Nutella adds a grown-up edge to these big chewy cookies.
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Like most moms, I’ve been making cut-out cookies for years and years, with or without the “help” of my kids.  Here’s the annual routine – as I make the dough, they are chomping at the bit to help cut out the cookies while the dough chills.  We cut them out together and while the cookies bake, the kids just can’t wait until the cookies are cool enough to frost and decorate.  They rush into the kitchen, happy and excited as can be, decorate about 6 cookies each, destroying the kitchen in the process, and then are bored of the process and run off to play while I am stuck decorating the remaining 5 dozen cookies and cleaning up sprinkles from every corner of the kitchen for months to come.  Sound familiar!?!  It’s a wonder I ever decided to teach kids to cook after this yearly event.  The other problem I used to have with cut-out sugar cookies is that they would spread out on the pan while baking, losing much of their original shape.  It was often hard to tell a Santa from a snowman!  After research, trial, and error, I finally came up with two solutions.  First, instead of using flour to dust on the work surface and the top of the dough, use granulated sugar.  All that flour that gets incorporated into the dough when rolling and re-rolling throws off the composition of the dough and causes it to spread.  Next, chill the cut-out cookies before baking to firm up the butter in the dough – problem solved.  Now Santa looks like Santa and a star actually has defined points at its ends. Another tip; if your circle of dough is too large to loosen from the counter with a pastry scraper (also called a bench knife), the bottom of a tart pan does a wonderful job of getting to the center of the dough to get it unstuck from the counter.

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These unique and pretty Christmas cookies are from the December 2005 edition of Gourmet Magazine. Speaking of Gourmet, its final issue is this month, November 2009. After 68 years, like so many other publications, it is now a thing of the past. What led to Gourmet’s demise? Even with nearly 1 million subscribers, who looked forward to the fantastic articles, recipes, and pictures each month, the magazine fell victim to a decline in ad sales due to popular television food shows and online recipe sites, like its own Epicurious.com, taking up its former advertising revenue.  Upon the announcement, on October 5, 2009, The Wall Street Journal said it was “like a giant soufflé falling.”  I have to agree, Gourmet was the first food magazine I subscribed to, some 27 years ago.  I kept every one of those issues until just a couple of summers ago, when I donated some 300 issues of Gourmet and nearly 1000 issues of Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, Saveur, Cook’s Illustrated, Cooking Light, and Martha Stewart Living to the Culinary Program at Scottsdale Community College.  It took two trips in my SUV because of the extreme weight and mass! Gourmet was the granddaddy of them all and it will be sadly missed by foodies worldwide.
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My three-week cooking class series at Les Gourmettes Cooking School is only a little more than a week away and the theme for the first class of the session is “Holiday Open House”.  That seemed all good until I took a look at the menu (that I developed in the summer and haven’t thought about or looked at since) and saw that it includes Assorted Christmas Cookies. Time to get busy and get some cookies baked and into the freezer! I’ll be making a double batch so I can get my own Christmas baking out of the way at the same time, see there’s an upside to everything! Baking is not my favorite thing, so all the cookie recipes will be coming from elsewhere, such as this one from the 2004 December issue of Bon Appetit.
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Goat Cheese and Green Olive-Almond Pesto Crostini

The guest chef-instructor at Barbara Fenzl’s Les Gourmettes Cooking School this week was Chef Tim McGrath of Cook’s Gathering Catering in Long Beach, California. Tim is one of the most creative, sharing, and knowledgeable chefs I’ve ever met.  I am constantly being asked for a recommendation for a caterer here in town and each time, I wish that Tim was in Phoenix, because he would always be my very first choice, hands down!  When I told Tim that, he let me know that he would be willing to fly to Phoenix to cater a party, so if you ever have a need for something really special, he’s your man!  For class, he served Mini Ahi Tuna Kabobs with this outstanding “pesto”.  One of the best things about Tim’s classes is that he’ll be teaching you a dish and then give you a dozen other ideas of what to do with that recipe.  When he suggested using this olive pesto on a crostini with goat cheese… well, that is right up my alley!  A great bonus… it’s “Easy – Breezy” and the colors lend themselves perfectly to the upcoming holiday season.

What is it that makes this recipe so “Easy – Breezy”?  Well, besides using the food processor to make the pesto and the fact that it is a quick and delicious appetizer, every single ingredient can be found at Trader Joe’s!  The roasted piquillo peppers are sold in a 10.4-ounce jar, and you can’t find a better price on the almonds, goat cheese, or olive oil anywhere in town.  You will notice this recipe does not call for salt, that is because the olives and their brine are salty enough.  The brine is used to thin out the pesto.  Unlike traditional pesto that uses basil, the olives and almonds do not have a high water content, thus the brine is needed to create the perfect consistency.
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