New Year's Eve

Black-Eyed Peas & Greens

Leah Short — Sat, 05 Jan 2019 04:43:01 +0000

Happy New Year! I hope 2019 has been treating you well so far. Did you make resolutions? Have you broken any? I made a few including baking more, especially bread! On January 1, I made Black-Eyed Peas & Greens in my instant pot for good luck. I usually eat boring peas and greens on the first every year, but I’ve had this particular recipe bookmarked since early last year. It is full of flavor, but the peas and greens still shine. If you didn’t get your good luck food in this year, save this recipe for next year. I did that last year with the good luck piglet. It’s never too late for a little good luck!

Thanks to my trusty Instant Pot, this recipe is really easy. The time consuming part comes from soaking the peas overnight. I know, I know, why are you soaking peas when, hello, you have an Instant Pot. I scratched my head on this one, too, but finally figured out it’s probably because cooking the dried peas in the Instant Pot AND doing the rest of the recipe would add 30+ minutes. Doable, but much easier to just soak your peas overnight and go ahead with the recipe the next day. I also chose to buy a bunch of collards instead of the bag of already chopped. To save time, you can certainly use the bag, but I’m anti collard stems, so I prefer to chop them myself.

I had never used a smoked turkey leg in my cooking before. It really does add a nice, smoky flavor and was pretty cheap at my grocery store (under 5 bucks). I didn’t like having to deal with removing the meat and shredding it, so next year I think I’ll skip that step and use ham instead. That means using a veggie or chicken broth, since the first part of the recipe is making a broth from the smoked turkey leg. Really good, but I really hate dealing with meat on the bones. I’m a weirdo, I know.

Definitely a keeper recipe that I’ll make every year. It’s slightly brothy, but not enough to where I’d call it a soup. Just super good comforting food to start your year off right!

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Crimson Spice Champagne Cocktail

Leah Short — Wed, 31 Dec 2014 16:44:11 +0000

I love meal planning, especially this time of year for holiday dinners. I always try to have a signature cocktail and this year was no different, although I think I made the best one yet! I picked Crimson Spice Champagne Cocktail for a few reasons. One, I was really curious about making a syrup from cranberry juice cocktail and wanted to see how it would turn out with the aromatics. Two, I’ve never used star anise. Three, the Iron Bowl was Thanksgiving weekend and well, the name and color just kind of fit.

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Blissini

Leah Short — Wed, 01 Jan 2014 16:46:20 +0000

Happy New Year! I hope your 2014 is getting off to a wonderful start. I always look forward to January 1st because it feels like such a fresh start. I don’t really make resolutions (other than getting rid of those holiday pounds), but I do enjoy feeling like I have a clean slate. To kick off 2014, I say cheers to you with a Blissini!

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Mini Champagne Cupcakes

Leah Short — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 23:04:00 +0000

Happy New Year! I hope 2013 brings you smiles and lots of good eats! To ring in the new year with friends, I baked these Mini Champagne Cupcakes. I love a good boozy cupcake and thought the champagne twist would be perfect for a celebration. I decided to make them mini so folks could grab a bite at a time instead of committing to a full-sized cupcake while partying. I must say, they are super cute with the silver and gold foil cupcake liners and the matching sprinkles on top!

So, how’s it taste?

You know I’m not a fan of white cake. I pretty much hate it. There I said it. But these cupcakes are delicious! What? How can this be? Yep, they are mighty tasty. Hey, add champagne and I change my tune. The champagne really makes the batter light and fluffy. You can’t really taste the champagne though, unless you try really hard. If you didn’t know champagne was in the cake and frosting, you’d never notice it. They’re just simple, sweet cupcakes. But aren’t they so darn cute? I loved the coordinating liners and sprinkles on top. These would be great for a wedding as well.

I used Korbel brut champagne, which I highly recommend using a dry champagne and not a sweet one as these cupcakes are super sweet. The frosting will make your teeth hurt from the sweetness. They seemed to mellow out a bit on the sweet factor after the frosting set, which I preferred. The mini size was perfect since you can pop them in your mouth. I think a full-size cupcake this sweet would be overkill. I would have liked to have tasted more of the champagne, but as far as cupcakes go, these are pretty great. You could also add a few drops of food coloring to the batter and frosting and make these coordinate with just about any special occasion.

Mini Champagne Cupcakes

adapted from Betty Crocker
makes about 60 mini cupcakes

Ingredients:

Cupcakes
1 box white cake mix
1 1/4 cups champagne (I used Korbel brut)
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 egg whites

Frosting
6 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup butter, softened
1/8 tsp. salt
6 tbsp. champagne

Garnish
silver & gold sugar sprinkles

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350Â°F (325Â°F for dark or nonstick pan). Place paper baking cups in each cup of a mini muffin tin.

2. In large bowl, mix dry cake mix and champagne. Add oil and egg whites. Beat with electric mixer on medium speed 2 minutes. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups.

3. Bake 9 to 11 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes; remove from pan to cooling rack. Cool completely.

4. In a large bowl beat powdered sugar, butter, and salt with electric mixer on low speed until blended. Beat in 6 tablespoons champagne. If frosting is too thick, beat in more champagne a few drops at a time. Frost cupcakes. Garnish with gold and silver sugar sprinkles.

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