Adventures in Mika's Kitchen
Glühwein is a traditional beverage (served hot) during the Christmas holidays in Austria and Germany. It is typically made with red wine, spices, and sugar… and heated gently to avoid cooking out the alcohol. This is my father’s recipe for Glühwein. He’s never written it down, but I’ve been watching him make it every Christmas [...]
Stollen is a German/Austrian winter holiday tradition – a sweet yeast bread containing dried and candied fruits and nuts, coated thickly with a powdered sugar shell. Typically, this bread is usually served during Christmas, when it is called “Weihnachtsstollen“, “Christstollen“, or “Dresden Christstollen“. This holiday staple originated about 500 years ago in the Christmas markets [...]
Happy Halloween everyone! Halloween has always been my favorite holiday… why? I think it had something to do with all the candy! I also like the fun surrounding it – being creative with pumpkins, and coming up with new treats to use up the leftovers. Pumpkin is food, and I don’t like to waste it! [...]
Now that Halloween is approaching, store shelves are filled with all kinds of sugary candies and chocolates. (There is a reason why this is my favorite time of year…) I love chocolate… but right now I’m trying to be a little bit more healthy and not indulge in candy/chocolate ALL of the time. (Moderation!) I [...]
Merry Christmas everyone! Now that Christmas is almost here… I thought I would post my method for making cute little “Gingerbread Houses” from graham crackers. I’ve been making these little graham cracker houses since I was a kid – because it is so easy and because you don’t need any specialized ingredients! All you need [...]
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! This year I made a big humongous 22 pound turkey… and even after giving away leftovers for family to take home, I still had a ton of leftover meat. Yesterday, we ate Thanksgiving 2.0 for lunch, and today we had Thanksgiving 3.0. I don’t want to eat Thanksgiving [...]
Happy Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is almost here… and I’ve been slowly getting ready for the big feast on Thursday. I plan to make most of the side dishes on Wednesday… but the pumpkin pie and other desserts can be made up 2-3 days in advance to help save time on Thanksgiving Day. My husband always says, [...]
Happy Halloween! Earlier this week, I posted a recipe for Pumpkin Cornbread – a slightly sweet cornbread that you can make with leftover pumpkin puree. Today, I’m posting a recipe for Pumpkin and Chicken Chili – another way to use leftover pumpkin – which goes really well as a main dish with the pumpkin cornbread. [...]
I remember the first time I roasted a thanksgiving turkey. I followed the advice of some website I read, and roasted the turkey breast side down – supposedly to keep it “juicy”. What did I end up with? An ugly flesh colored bird, with rubbery skin, that was neither “juicy” nor appetizing. The meat was [...]
Happy Halloween everyone!!!! When the night is over, don’t forget to reclaim your Jack O’lanterns to make pumpkin puree. You can then freeze the puree, and use it throughout the year to make pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, pumpkin soup… whatever you feel like! Making pumpkin puree from field pumpkins is a little bit time consuming, [...]
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