The 12 Weeks of Christmas: Movie Edition-Week 8

The 12 Weeks of Christmas: Movie Edition-Week 8

The Polar Express 

I thought I would write this up before I crash any harder. This week, featured not one, not two, but three hot cocoa recipes and I have to give them all a fair try to decide which were my favorites. That and the milkshake I had with lunch pretty much ensures an epic sugar crash I can feel coming. Time to chug lots of water and eat some peanut butter. Not sure if that helps clear out the sugar, but it can't hurt...

The Polar Express isn't a movie you think of for food, but it does have an epic song and dance scene devoted to hot chocolate. I don't eat chocolate, thanks to another epic sugar crash years ago, but I have been saving up white chocolate versions to try out and this was the chance!

I was surprised at how an idea of non-chocolate-based "cocoa" for lack of a better term, could come up with such different versions. Each has slightly different ingredients, and amounts of them, and turned out to look really different from each other.

First up, Snow Cocoa. This recipe is the only one that doesn't use white chocolate. It uses a lot of vanilla and sugar for its flavor. For an ingredient list that is so simple, this is a really tasty recipe. I found it a bit too sweet, so I would probably cut the amount in half. The vanilla really brings the flavor. I liked this one a lot. This recipe says it's from allrecipes.com, but when I looked it up, I wasn't able to find it, so I felt comfortable sharing it here.

Next up is the Spice White Chocolate, taken from a cookbook, so I can't share the recipe here. This one had white chocolate chips and milk, along with cinnamon and nutmeg. Cinnamon is a common flavoring in hot chocolate, specifically Mexican hot chocolate, but I've never had any with nutmeg before and it was a great edition! Nutmeg is a natural pairing with milk-based drinks and sauces, so I'm not surprised it worked so well. It just never occurred to me to try it, but I highly recommend it!

And last but not least, is the Trader Joe's recipe for coconut milk-based cocoa. This can be found on their website, too. This one ended up being my favorite of the three. It was delicate, the least sweet, but very flavorful. Vanilla and cinnamon are the main flavorings for this, and are very well-balanced. 

These are the ingredients for all three recipes, except the the jar of nutmeg, not in this shot.

I decided to make all three at the same time. Luckily I have multiple whisks so there was no flavor blending.

Here they are after stirring and heating through.

All of these recipes were super easy to make, and can be doubled or halved as needed. I would drink any of these again, but maybe not all at the same time! The next time you come in from the snow, you should definitely make one of these to warm up with!

The 12 Weeks of Christmas: Movie Edition-Week 7

The 12 Weeks of Christmas: Movie Edition-Week 7

White Christmas

One of the iconic scenes and songs in the movie, White Christmas, talks about sandwiches and what kind of dreams one may have after eating them. I couldn't not use this as my food scene for this movie. I have several sandwich recipes and chose two I've had in my test pile for a long time and decided this was the time to try them out! 

First up, was this recipe: Black Pepper Molasses Pulled Chicken Sandwiches which is from Cooking Light, from 2009! I had used a rotisserie chicken for something last month and saved the dark meat for this recipe. I wrapped and froze it until now. It was just enough to make a half batch of this recipe.

I made this sauce when I got up this morning. It's very simple and uses ingredients most people have on hand, so it's a pretty convenient recipe!

This sauce is easy to cut in half.

Here it is, ready to go.

I put the chicken in it when it was done and left it in the fridge to marinate.

Cooking on the stove.

And post-shredding. It really couldn't be easier to make this.

My second recipe is old enough that I was unable to find the source online, so I will write it out.

Little Cuban Sandwiches

2 thin French bread loaves

1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard

1 Tbsp. mayonnaise

1/4 lb. thinly-sliced Swiss cheese

2 large dill pickles, thinly sliced lengthwise

1/4 lb. thinly-sliced baked ham

1 Tbsp. unsalted butter

1.) Split bread and spread with mustard and mayonnaise. Layer 2 halves with cheese, pickle, and ham; top with remaining halves.

2.) In a heavy skillet, heat 1/2 Tbsp. butter over medium heat. Cut one sandwich on an angle into 3 or 4 pieces to fit in pan. Place in pan, over with foil, and place a slightly smaller heavy skillet on top. Place a full tea kettle or other heavy object in the skillet to weight the sandwiches. Cook until bread is brown and crisp, about 3 minutes.

3.) Turn and cook the same way until crisp on the other side and cheese is melted, about 2 more minutes; wrap in foil to keep warm. Melt remaining butter; repeat process with remaining sandwich.

4.) Let cook for a minute or two before cutting diagonally into bite-size pieces.

The ingredient list is pretty simple for this one too.

I wasn't sure how the process would work, but I trusted it, and it paid off.

Sandwich, with the foil on top.

And the pan with the full kettle on top. It will take a while for you to find just the right angle for it not to fall over. Keep your hand on it until you do or it could end in a disaster.

Here it is after taking off the foil, just before turning it over. I added more butter to fry the other side before flipping.

Here is the flat side, fried, with the rounded side on the bottom now. This is an even trickier side to keep under control with the weights.

It doesn't take too long, weighing it down does help it cook faster. The cheese is very melty, as you can see.

I had to sort of put it back together because it slid apart a bit when it cooked. The pickles fell out but it was all easily fixed.

Here is the final product! The Cuban sandwich was really good. The weighing down really creates a different texture from a typical toasted/grilled sandwich. The bbq sandwich was pretty good too. I should have toasted the inside of the bun so it had a bit more texture. The sauce was mustardy, and I think by tomorrow it will be better because the flavors will have blended better.

Of the two, I definitely liked the Cuban sandwich better, but both were really easy to make. I might have to keep making my grilled sandwiches this way because it was truly a superior sandwich. All I know is, I'm going to be having sweet dreams tonight!!

The 12 Weeks of Christmas: Movie Edition-Week 6

The 12 Weeks of Christmas: Movie Edition-Week 6

It's a Wonderful Life

I knew I wanted to feature this movie in this year's movie project, because you can't do Christmas movies without it, but there wasn't a lot of options to choose from for food. We never quite see what George and his dad are eating before the school dance, and we don't know what dessert Harry has on his head, either. I don't drink, so I couldn't focus on the alcoholic beverages mentioned. The roast chicken Mary makes in the fireplace was impossible to recreate. And the salt, bread, and wine aren't much to go on. But then I remembered it, one of the iconic lines from the film: "Say brainless, don't you know where coconuts come from?" I happen to love coconut, so I decided to make it the focal point for this week and it did not disappoint. If you are a coconut fan, this week is for you!

First up, though the second in order of what I made this week, was my entree: Brazilian Chicken With Coconut Milk. This was a recipe I've had for a while but have put off because I always get a little intimidated with peppers, but this turned out great!

The ingredient line-up.

The spice blend. This is a really good one!

I sliced two chicken breasts in half because they were really big. It allowed me to put more seasoning on all of it.

Here is the chicken post-browning.

And the aromatics ready to saute!

Post-saute!

And now for the tomatoes.

All cooked down.

It says light coconut milk but all I had was the full-fat kind. As long as you don't indulge too often, it's not too bad for you.

Cooking down a bit.

With the chicken added and sauce cooked down more. I added more of the spice blend to the sauce and a bit of salt just to get the seasoning right.

Here's the final product. This was amazing! It's not too spicy but you do hit little bits of spice from the seasoning and jalapeno and ginger. I think this is going to taste even better tomorrow once the flavors meld even further. 

I was really impressed with this. It looks so fancy but it was quite easy to make, actually. It's one I can see myself doing more often, but maybe with the lower-fat coconut milk from now on!

Next up, is dessert. I actually made this Friday night after work, before we lost power in the wind. I gave half of it to my parents, because there's no way my sister and I could eat an entire cake. Or should. And I have to say, even though my sister is a non-coconut person, she liked the cake and has had a few slices of it over the weekend! My parents approved of it as well.

I tried to find this on the Taste of Home website but had no luck. This is so old it's from the actual magazine I used to get way back in the day. It's from the Feb/March 2004 edition. Since the entree had coconut milk, it was only right that the dessert have actual coconut, and this does not disappoint!

Cranberries soaking in orange juice

They really do suck up all the juice! It makes them easier to chop when they're like this.

Here is the filling, ready to go.

And the batter, almost ready to go.

Here is the batter with the coconut flakes added. I used really fine flakes, unsweetened, so it just almost dissolved into the cake. I'm not a big fan of the large shred, sweetened kind.

Building up the layers...

And the final layer. Ready for baking!

I found it took around 70-75 minutes to bake this in my oven.

Out of the pan and dusted with powdered sugar.

 

And ready to serve! This was good like this the first night but it started drying out by the second day and I found cool whip helped after that. 

This weekend was a celebration of coconut! I'm really happy that both the recipes were successful because I love coconut and wanted these to be winners! The cake is very autumnal, perfect for this time of year. The chicken you could do all year round, if you wanted.

I highly recommend these recipes, and I think George Bailey would enjoy being able to imagine far off places if he'd eaten these too!

The 12 Weeks of Christmas: Movie Edition-Week 5

The 12 Weeks of Christmas: Movie Edition-Week 5

Elf 

Because elves stick to the four food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup, I thought it was perfect to focus on for the night before Halloween! I know, I know, I could have done The Nightmare Before Christmas, but this movie has better food options.

Tonight also marks my first fail. I made a recipe I won't bother sharing, because the recipe itself is flawed. I tried out an orange caramel rice krispie treat recipe that involved making my own caramel. Sugar work is very finicky, and I didn't let it get dark enough so the flavor was blah, and the recipe was too much cereal to caramel and was completely dry. It's now in my compost bag sadly...

But dinner turned out great!! I made Confetti Spaghetti and it's basically spaghetti meets sloppy joes and it was fabulous! Since the sauce leaned sweet and even has brown sugar in it, I thought it was appropriate for how Buddy the Elf likes his spaghetti...!

Here is the ingredient line up for both recipes. I won't bother showing the process for my recipe fail, but it was kinda cool to experiment with caramel.

The recipe calls for ground beef, which I don't eat, so I used ground chicken instead. That's why it looks different.

The sauce is super easy to make, and pretty fast, all things considered.

I made it earlier in the day and left it in the fridge till I was ready to assemble the dish.

Action shot! Pasta boilng in the water and the sauce reheating on the stove.

I did not break the noodles in half because you cut the portions later and I thought that would cut them into smaller pieces that way.

All mixed!

The recipe says to put the cheese on after the half hour of baking but I didn't pay attention and put it on anyway. It turned out ok but some of it did stick to the foil, so if you can, go ahead and wait till that last 5 minutes.

Here's the final product. Does this look amazing, or what?!! This will make enough that I can freeze portions for another time.

Here's a close up of the dished-up product. This was really good and my sister really liked it too! It's just sweet enough without being overly sweet. The spices don't come through too much but I hope by tomorrow when everything melds, it'll be more "spicy." I could always add more the next time I make this. 

This is something I could easily make over and over again. It would be good for family gatherings because everybody would like this. And the cheddar on top is wonderful!

Buddy the elf would highly approve of this meal. He would probably still pour some syrup over it for good measure, but he'd love this! If you want a dinner while you watch Elf this year, this is definitely one to go for. You won't regret it!