Dining at sea means both the expected and the unexpected are now being offered for an additional cover charge beyond the cruise fare, allowing cruise ship guests more options than they ever previously had.
Category: Recipe
“Think Red” Healthy Red Bean Dip
Continuing on with our “Think Red” series to encourage wiser food choices that can contribute to heart health, today’s blog post is not just about beans and heart health. We’d like to also mention the larger family that beans belong to as well. Various beans can actually be quite heart healthy, depending upon exactly how they are prepared and what other ingredients they are combined with. Most people are familiar with red kidney beans, although there are many other beans, which belong to a larger family called “pulses” and include a wide range of naturally nutritious offerings. Image courtesy of
Savory Cheese Rolls
I use the Red Star Yeast Savory Cheese Rolls recipe. This is a batter dough method yeast roll recipe, so requires NO kneading! Once the dough has risen in the bowl, you beat it down, fill muffin cups, allow the dough to rise again, then simply bake it off. If for some reason you don’t like celery seed, but do like fennel seed, then you could probably add 1 tsp dried Herbs de Provence to this roll recipe in place of the celery seed if desired (and IF you aren’t making a bread stuffing recipe as well for the Thanksgiving Holiday–bread stuffing
Holiday Baking – Very Easy-to-Make Peanut Butter Blossoms Cookies
Want a cookie recipe that is EASY to make & that virtually any one can make for the holidays? (or any other time for that matter!) These work quite well for many a cookie exchange, too.
Read MoreHoliday Baking – Very Easy-to-Make Peanut Butter Blossoms Cookies
Eggplant Caponata for the Holidays
Italian families typically love eggplant dishes, and tend to be quite fond of pine nuts as well. It turns out that combining eggplant with pine nuts is a perfect start for creating an appetizer to enjoy year round, and it can be quite delicious during the winter holidays.
Holiday Baking – Cookie Making Tips
If you are making any type of drop sugar cookie recipes up this holiday season, here are some easy to remember tips to keep in mind…
Silky Smooth Pumpkin Pie
Pumpkin Pie or pumpkin custard is a classic ending to a holiday meal. The perceived textures of the pumpkin pie or custard as well as its perceived flavor profile can vary enormously from recipe to recipe. Several factors beyond whether the pie or pumpkin custard is served warm or cold will influence those sensory perceptions. The actual pumpkin source used, whether or not there is any grated carrot, etc. in the recipe, the ingredient choices creating the custard filling, as well as the specific spice choices made including the age and pungency of any ground spices used will all affect the
BÛCHE De NÖEL (Yule Log/ Holiday Log Cake/Chocolate Cream Roll aka Sponge Cake)
This particular cake recipe dates back to my childhood in terms of my own recollection, but the Yule Log aka BÛCHE De NÖEL has been a holiday favorite for centuries. Before moving out to the suburbs, my mother worked in the city–New York City to be exact. There was a famous and unusual eatery there called the Horn & Hardart “Automat” where sometimes, for a splurge, on a vacation day she would go and get a rare lunch out, or sometimes just a dessert. Other images of the Automat from that time can be found here. The last New York
Read MoreBÛCHE De NÖEL (Yule Log/ Holiday Log Cake/Chocolate Cream Roll aka Sponge Cake)
Holiday Baking Pointers & Tips Series Kickoff
Who doesn’t love the smell of something yummy baking in the oven? The sensory impact of cookies baking is one many of us can remember fondly from childhood if anyone in our families baked regularly or if we just walked by an open bakery door. Today’s blog post will kick the work week off by focusing on an overview of cookies and their ingredients and mention where to find a wonderful sugar cookie recipe worth making.
Holiday Baking – Developing Flavor Notes in Cookies
As part of our Holiday Baking series of blog posts, today the focus will be on ways to develop more flavor notes in cookies to increase your sensory enjoyment of them. A variation of a sugar cookie that so many people enjoy is some version of a chocolate chip cookie. Everyone has their favorite variation of the classic recipe, however, not everyone may be making the dough 1-2 days ahead of time before baking it off. Why make and refrigerate dough 1-2 days in advance then of when you plan to bake the cookies? Read on to find out the
Read MoreHoliday Baking – Developing Flavor Notes in Cookies