Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone!  In honor of this fun, yet often American abused holiday I thought I'd stay away from the bars and instead share a collection of some of my past favorite Mexican recipe posts. If you've been following SavoryGirl at all you likely know by now that I think I may have been Mexican in my past life.  It's hard to go two weeks without one of my weekly dinner menus including something Mexican inspired and it's almost guaranteed that I am making some version of Huevos Rancheros for breakfast on the weekends.  So let's take a spin through SavoryGirl's Mexican past creations...

First up is my all-time most popular post...Eva Longoria's Chicken Tortilla Soup.  It's a little hard for me to swallow that a once in a blue moon recipe that I ripped out of a People Magazine while traveling has been the most popular post on my blog for the past 2  years, but I can indeed stand behind the recipe.  This soup is better than most that I have in great Mexican restaurants.

Sunday:	Whole Roasted Chicken, Parmesan Bread Pudding with Broccoli Rabe & Pancetta and Asparagus Shiitake Sauté
Monday:	Brown Rice & Beans with Ginger Chile Salsa
Tuesday:	Leftovers: Lemony Chicken & Orzo Soup
Wednesday:	White Fish with leftover Parmesan Bread Pudding & Grilled Asparagus
Thursday:	Leftovers: Brown Rice & Beans with Ginger Chile
Friday:	Leftovers: Fish Tacos with Sauteed Brussel Sprouts
Saturday:	Eat Out

We're not big Easter people, but since this Sunday is Easter and we do like a reason to celebrate and cook good food we're amping up our typical Sunday dinner and making it a bit more indulgent than usual.  Mostly in terms of this delicious Bon Appétit recipe I just found for Parmesan Bread Pudding with Broccoli Rabe & Pancetta...gluten free it is not, but like I said we're splurging a bit.  Served alongside a nice whole roasted chicken and a seasonal sauté of asparagus and shiitakes...sounds like the perfect Easter dinner to me!

Monday we'll get back to our more traditionally healthy routine with another new recipe from Bon Appétit that is a simple yet yummy sounding twist on beans and rice.  We'll then turn our roast chicken from Sunday into a lemony orzo soup and finish off the week with some white fish served alongside leftover parmesan bread pudding and more of that delicious spring asparagus that we can't get enough of these days.

Happy Easter everyone...hope you have a wonderful, delicious day with family and friends.

There's no better way to start the new year off with good friends at an intimate yet festive house party. I know some like to go out on the town and get crazy...trust me, I've had my fair share of those New Year's Eve celebrations as well. But over the years I've always ended up feeling like the hassle of transportation, cost of the entire night and ultimate hellacious hangover aren't entirely worth it. To be honest, there's nothing more depressing to me than feeling completely awful and bad about myself on January 1st...so now my celebration of preference is one that lends itself to at least a slightly lesser hangover. Enter, the house party.

Every good house party, particularly on New Year's Eve, has at least one specialty cocktail. On this special night, those cocktails should definitely include champagne so I thought I would share a couple of my favorite champagne cocktails to help you start 2013 off right. Most are very basic...but the basic yet delicious cocktail is the best friend of a party hostess!

Sunday:	In Pasadena
Monday:	In Pasadena
Tuesday:	Rose Bowl & Parade in Pasadena!
Wednesday:	Take-Out on Drive Home from Pasadena
Thursday:	Christian’s Posole Soup
Friday:	Breakfast for Dinner (DIY)
Saturday:	Leftovers: Christian’s Posole

New Year's is always a bit of a last minute plan for us....and this year it turned out a million times better than we ever expected. A couple of extra tickets to the Rose Bowl and Tournament of Roses Parade just came our way! Going to the Rose Bowl has been on Christian's bucket list before the idea of bucket lists was even popular. And the Tournament of Roses parade is my absolute favorite parade all year long so we are both super excited to take an impromptu end of year road trip down to Pasadena and start the year off right!

That also means that we won't be cooking our traditional New Year's dishes this year. I usually make Osso Bucco with Cheesy Polenta on New Year's Eve. Then on New Year's Day I always make something with Black-Eyed Peas in the southern tradition of starting the year off with good luck. One of our favorites is this side dish of Black-Eyed Peas with Bacon and Ginger. Whatever you decide to do, I hope you have a wonderful time looking back on 2012 and celebrating the start of a New Year with your loved ones.

Once we return from Pasadena we'll keep it simple as we get back into the swing of our normal routine with one of our old standby favorites...Christian's Posole soup. Another night of easy breakfast for dinner followed by Posole leftovers finishes off the first week of the new year.

Have a happy and safe New Year's Eve everyone!

Growing up as a child, Monkey Bread was a relatively rare but very welcome treat. Nothing was more enjoyable to me than eating with my hands and getting all sticky alongside my parents. I don't think we typically had it on Christmas morning, but as I've developed my own traditions with Christian this recipe has become our go-to Christmas morning staple.

It's a perfect Christmas morning breakfast...you can partially prepare it the day before and refrigerate it and then just do one last-minute step and pop it in the oven first thing while the coffee is brewing and everyone is gathering around the tree. Makes the house smell delicious! Traditional monkey bread doesn't have any orange zest or pecans so feel free to omit but I think these additions really make it special...

Sunday:	Taco Night (DIY)
Monday:	Christmas Eve Fondue!
Tuesday:	Christmas Dinner at Top of the Mark
Wednesday:	Leftovers: Tacos
Thursday:	Tortellini Soup
Friday:	Christmas with family in Sacramento
Saturday:	In Sacramento

The holidays are here, the holidays are here! I absolutely love this time of year...so festive and fun, especially since we don't do any traveling and just stay local. San Francisco pretty much empties out during the holidays so it always feels like we have our super festive city all to ourselves! All the time of work doesn't hurt either.

So what are we eating this week?  Well I find that this time of year starts to get a bit heavy with all of the classic, American holiday comfort food so we're breaking things up a bit by starting the week off with a Mexican taco night. Nice and easy but delicious. Then it's time to jump right into one of our favorite holiday traditions...Christmas Eve Fondue Dinner!

We do all three courses...cheese, meat/veggies in broth and chocolate. It's a nice, long, luxurious meal that is perfectly conducive to good conversation with good friends. This year we're having 3 friends who are also in town for the holidays over to join us...but even when it's just the two of us it makes for a very festive and romantic Christmas Eve.

Over the past three years, these cookies have come to mean Christmas to me. Their soft, cake-like texture. Their not-to-sweet chocolate depth. Their perfectly peppermint-y bite. Tastes like Christmas...so much so that I've already made three batches this year!

I first discovered this recipe a few years ago when researching new cookie recipes for my annual cookie party. I'm not typically a big peppermint fan but come Christmas time I all of a sudden can't get enough peppermint bark candy or peppermint stick ice cream. So I was looking for a way to incorporate this strange seasonal craving into my cookie party and stumbled upon this recipe on a blog called 101 Cookbooks.

Since this recipe makes quite a few cookies, feel free to also freeze half of the dough (or even double the recipe and freeze a full batch) so you have it on hand for when guests stop by unexpectedly during the holiday season. Once you have the dough all lined up on the cookie sheets ready to go in the oven, simply pop the cookie sheet in the freezer instead and once the cookie dough balls are fully frozen you can then put them all in a freezer storage bag. Pop right from the freezer to the oven when you're ready to make them...they might need an extra 1-2 minutes in the oven, but no need to thaw first. Will make your house smell divine while they're cooking, which is nice when guests are visiting as well!

The recipe below is almost identical to the 101 Cookbooks original that I first made years ago, but I've adapted it slightly over the years:

Gløgg, or hot spiced wine, is the taste of Christmas in the Henricksen household. It's warmth as we sip it and its spicy-citrus aroma filling the house can only mean one thing...Christmas is right around the corner! While Christian didn't grow up with Gløgg, he is of Scandinavian descent so he's our Gløgg maker and has been for the past 7 years. He's gotten so confident in his Gløgg making abilities that he doesn't even use a recipe anymore...but his general approach, which is delicious, is as follows:

The Henricksen Holiday Cookie Party is a long-standing, fabulous tradition. Christian's mom has been hosting her own holiday cookie party since the mid-90s and I was introduced to it back in 2002 when I started dating Christian.  I thought it was such a fun idea and Christian loves cookies so much that we decided to continue with the tradition for our own little family of friends. It's a fantastic way to gather friends together, sample a dazzling array of cookies and imbibe in festive drinks while listening to the Carpenters croon Christmas carols. Be forewarned though, it's a party that almost guarantees a sugar hangover!

 

So, what's on the menu?  You'll be happy to see it's super easy and low key!

• Cookies of course...some of your own and a batch from every group of guests!
• A savory table with decadent cheese & charcuterie platters along with all of the requisite accompaniments such as nuts, olives, figs, etc...
• A crudité platter
• Homemade Gløgg (mulled wine)
• Warm spiked apple cider with homemade whipped cream

But first, let's talk about the cookies.  This is a cookie pot luck, if you will.  So I usually bake 3 cookies and guests are required to bring 1 dish of cookies of their own as well.  It's fun because you often get a peek into their family traditions or discover a fabulous new cookie for your own repertoire. Since we've been doing this for so many years and have many repeat guests, our party tends to get a bit competitive...those who show up with store-bought cookies are ridiculed a bit :)

I know Thanksgiving is over and everyone is ready to move onto the next big holiday, but with the week of Thanksgiving being my favorite cooking week of the year I thought it was worthy of a couple more blog posts.  This one is simply a nice visual journey through all of the dishes I made this year with some descriptions.

Next week I'll highlight the recipe for Cranberry Pepper Jelly that I make every year. It is fantastic on sandwiches, baked brie, with cream cheese and crackers, etc...  So while most have already made their one turkey of the year there are still plenty of opportunities to enjoy the spicy-sweet deliciousness all year long.

So let's start the photo journey with that one...Cranberry Pepper Jelly. This is almost always the first thing I make, the weekend before Thanksgiving, since it has a 3-6 week shelf life in the refrigerator. I've honestly never liked anything other than canned cranberry sauce (I know, blasphemous!) until I discovered this recipe. Now I'm totally hooked on it's spicy-sweet combination and for the first time ever didn't even touch my canned cranberry sauce this year!

The next thing I make the weekend before the holiday is homemade turkey stock as a base for my gravy. If you don't want to do this you can always use store-bought chicken or turkey stock, but I find that making your own makes a big difference in the gravy and it's honestly very easy. If you're like me, this also means you get a little extra Turkey meat for your leftover soup as well since I refuse to throw away all of the meat on the turkey wings after making the stock.  Just pick it all off and freeze it until your ready to make your soup or other Thanksgiving leftovers.

A couple of days before Thanksgiving I start brining the turkey and prepping all of the veggies that will hold for a day or two.

I find that nothing makes for a juicy turkey like brining it for 2 days in advance...not frying it, not starting it cooking upside down, nothing. I also slather it in herb butter (both on top and under the skin), so that doesn't hurt! My favorite brine that I have found over the years is a beer brine...I use Newcastle which makes this turkey a bit of an expensive date, but trust me your guests will be singing your praises. And we all know that's hard praise to get with so many bad, dry turkey experiences from Thanksgivings past! Make sure the brine is completely covering your turkey...sometimes you have to get a bit crafty with pressure on the bag in certain spots to make this happen.

It's also important to have a great carver on hand day-of so that you can plate your turkey in a beautiful and appetizing way...my husband is a pro at this by now, so I'm lucky here as you can see below.