Ginger Snap Aquavit Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 thumb size piece of ginger
• 5 cinnamon sticks
• 30 cloves
• zest of ½ orange
• 750 ml vodka

Intstructions:

1. Scrub ginger, then slice into coins.
2. Add sliced ginger to a glass jar or bottle along with cinnamon sticks, cloves, orange zest, and vodka.
3. Seal and store in a cool place, out of direct light, for 5-7 days.
4. Strain before enjoying.

1 oz Vida Añejo
2 oz Kahlua
2-3 oz cream
1 oz Baileys Irish Cream
1/4 oz peppermint simple syrup

Cuisine Unlimited

Call with your ideas for a stress-free holiday dinner or family party with Cuisine’s Christmas Dinner to Go. Pricing is a la carte and orders must be placed by Monday, Dec. 22 and prepaid. Pick up or delivery on Christmas Eve is scheduled for 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and on Christmas Day from 9 a.m. to noon. Delivery in the Salt Lake Valley is $40 and delivery to Park City is $55.

Main courses include herb roasted turkey with cranberry-orange chutney, cinnamon pork tenderloin with dried cherry vinaigrette; brown sugar and clove spiral ham; and prime rib with horseradish cream and au jus.

For Salt Lake Valley orders call 801-268-2332, and for Park City orders call 435-647-0010.

Wasatch Front

Caffe Niche

On Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day, Niche will be open for brunch from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

On New Year’s Eve, enjoy a special four-course dinner, beginning at 5 p.m. Main courses include Morgan Valley lamb osso buco with creamy polenta and haricots verts green beans; sautéed scallops with green pea croquette, jumbo lump crab, bacon and lemon caper agrodolce; and house made pumpkin and ricotta filled ravioli, citrus brown butter beurre blanc, sage, roasted pumpkin seeds, house pickled jalapeños and roasted butternut squash.

Oasis Cafe

Three-course dinners, featuring poached escolar over Brussels sprouts and carrot risotto, with peach and coconut strudel for dessert, will be served Dec. 22 to 28 for $25 per person. If you make it to Oasis before Dec. 22, the three course dinner will be sautéed lobster meat over capellini pasta with balsamic reduction and saffron infused pear with a soybean sauce.

On New Year’s Eve, a special four-course prix fixe menu will be served starting at 5 p.m. Cost is $40, not including wine pairings. Main courses include grilled salmon over Yukon gold mashed potatoes with roasted fennel, dill hollandaise sauce with balsamic reduction; truffle beef wellington with roasted red potatoes, baby carrots and port wine demi-glace; and stuffed chicken breast with bacon, feta cheese, roasted red peppers and spinach over soft polenta with hickory tomato sauce.

Bambara

On Christmas Eve, enjoy breakfast at Bambara from 7 to 10 a.m., lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and dinner from 5:30 to 9 p.m. From Friday, Dec. 26 to Sunday Dec. 28, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., Bambara will serve Chef Powers’ weekend brunch, along with dinner each evening starting at 5:30 p.m. Brunch items include Croque Madame, grilled chicken club sandwich, grilled king salmon salad and an all new brunch entree that’s to be revealed.

On New Year’s Eve, Bambara will be open for breakfast from 7 to 10 a.m., lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and dinner starting at 5:30 p.m. Special offerings include short ribs or veal cheeks with dungeness crab and truffles; kumamoto oysters from Washington with champagne mignonette; endive, stilton and blood orange salad; and buckwheat blinis with caviar.

Bambara will be open for brunch on New Year’s Day, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Faustina

On Christmas Eve, Faustina will serve lunch, followed by dinner from 4:30 to 8 p.m.

On New Year’s Eve, join Faustina for a four-course menu of traditional American favorites starting at 5 p.m. The cost is $50 per person with $20 wine pairings. The third course, paired with Hob Nob Pinot Noir, includes your choice of herb crusted prime rib with wild mushroom au gratin, applewood bacon wrapped asparagus and port wine demi glace; pan seared Arctic char and butter poached lobster with roasted fennel and tarragon risotto and braised Swiss chard; and pork tenderloin roulade stuffed with spinach, caramelized onions and bacon, braised root vegetables and peppercorn demi glace.

Wasatch Back 

Powder at Waldorf Astoria

This year, Powder is offering a special four-course Christmas Eve dinner on Dec. 24 from 5 to 10 p.m. The price is $69 for adults, and a children’s menu is available.

On Christmas Day, join Powder for brunch, including breakfast favorites, soups, salads, seafood, hot and cold entrees and dessert, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The cost is $65 for adults and $25 for children. Santa will be at the Waldorf Astoria Park City greeting kids on Saturday, Dec. 20, 3 to 5 p.m.

On New Year’s Eve, Powder will serve a six course dinner and champagne, 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. $95 per person.

Cisero’s

Enjoy a prix fixe Italian dinner, including a house salad, Tuscan bean soup or broccoli cheddar soup, three-cheese ravioli, butternut squash ravioli, chicken parmigiana or penne pollo, on Christmas. The meal is $45 and $5 for desserts, including tiramisu, lady fingers, coffee, Kahlua and whipped cream or lemon cream cannoli. Kids meals run $18 and include a house salad or broccoli cheddar soup and roast turkey or three-cheese macaroni and cheese.

On New Year’s Eve, Cisero’s three course prix-fixe menu includes choices like Carpaccio with Niman Ranch top sirloin and Agnolotti en Brodo with Niman Ranch beef. For dessert, choose between honey-ricotta cheesecake or apple cobbler with Bee’s Knees vanilla ice cream. $45 prix fixe, $5 dessert.

The Brass Tag at Deer Valley

The Brass Tag’s delicious holiday cuisine includes steamed mussels and a brick-oven shrimp skillet with curry chorizo, saffron-roasted red pepper and fresh tarragon parmesan, oven-roasted fresh fish and a local Chop of the Day.

Deer Valley Gorcery Cafe

Get your holiday meal to go, from $9.75 to $14 per four-person item. Options include lemon thyme turkey gravy, huckleberry chutney, Deer Valley roasted garlic mashers, roasted beet salad, green bean au gratin, roasted baby carrots and homemade Struan stuffing.

Grub Steak

On Christmas, enjoy Grub Steak’s prix fixe menu for $41.75. Start with a choice between the salad bar, wild-rice-and-mushroom soup or hearts of romaine salad. Then enjoy a special entrée of grilled elk sirloin with dried cherry and gala apple chutney. For dessert, enjoy Christmas log cake with mocha cream ice cream.

Celebrate New Year’s Eve with Grub Steak, and enjoy the prix fixe menu for $63.75. Start with the salad bar, wild-rice-and-mushroom soup or Caesar salad. Follow it up with surf-and-turf with slow-roasted prime rib of beef with béarnaise sauce and cold-water lobster, along with a side of potatoes au gratin and roasted butternut squash. Finish your meal with chocolate lava cake with a side of creamy Haagen Dazs vanilla ice cream.

The Mariposa at Deer Valley

On New Year’s Eve, The Mariposa will serve a special four-course prix fixe menu for $125 per person with an optional $50 wine pairing. Reservations begin at 5:45 p.m., and the last reservation can be made for 9 p.m.

Montage Deer Valley

Enjoy a four-course prix fixe Christmas Eve or Christmas Day dinner, 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. each day, at Apex for $125. A $45 kids menu will be available for ages 5 to 12.

On New Year’s Eve, Apex will serve a five-course prix fixe menu, $195 for adults, $65 for children.

Make reservations for New Year’s Eve at Yama Sushi, and enjoy a selection of a la carte options.

Kick off 2015 with a dinner buffet, featuring live entertainment, mouth-watering food stations, dancing and a midnight balloon drop in the Vista Lounge. The celebration runs from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. and costs $175 per person.

Stein Eriksen Lodge

On Christmas Eve, there will be two seatings for a special prix fixe menu in the Glitretind. The first seating is between 5:30 and 6 p.m., running until about 7 p.m., $140 adults, $30 kids. The second seating is between 7:30 and 8 p.m., $155 adults, $30 kids. Musicians will perform from 6 to 9 p.m.

On Christmas Day, Glitretind will serve its traditional Christmas Buffet, $75 adults, $30 kids.

On Christmas Night, Stein Eriksen will hold its Christmas Night buffet, starting at 5 p.m., $80 adults, $35 kids.

On New Year’s Eve, Glitretind will serve a prix fixe menu and hold two seatings. The first will be at 6 p.m., $175 per person, and feature a four-course menu and a special kids menu for $50. The second seating will include a five-course menu for $225 per person. A kid’s menu will not be served for the second seating.

And on New Year’s Day, enjoy Stein Eriksen’s Sunday Brunch, $50 adults, $25 kids.

IN VOGUE… AGAIN

The champagne cocktail proves the classics never go out of style. Good sparkling wine can make a celebration out of any occasion. The current vogue for cocktails has revived interest in the champagne cocktail, and new versions of this classic are on bar menus all over Utah.

The Classic Champagne Cocktail Recipe:

3 oz. champagne or sparkling wine
1/3 oz. cognac
2 dashes Angostura bitters
1 sugar cube

Place the sugar cube in a champagne glass. Saturate with Angostura bitters. Add champagne and cognac. Enjoy.

BUDGET BUBBLIES

Three wallet-friendly bubblies when concocting a champagne cocktail.

1. Gruet Winery in New Mexico makes several styles of sparkling wine, but the flagship is the Gruet Brut, NV, a crisp but complex, classic wine; food-friendly, but great alone and a deal at $14.99.

2.  Simonnet-Febvre produces several made in the methode champenoise but called Cremant de Bourgogne. One of my faves is the 100% pinot noir, with a food-friendly sturdiness sometimes lacking in less expensive bubblies. $18.99

3.  Gloria Ferrer’s newish sparkler, Va de Vi Ultra Cuvee, is slightly sweet at first sip, but the sugar fades immediately to a tart fruit flavor with a toasty backbone. $17.99

How to make liqueurs 

Start with a high-proof, mild to no-flavored alcohol. For a 750 ml. bottle of limoncello, you’ll need the peel of 7 or 8 lemons. Just the zest—none of the white part. Put the peel in the alcohol in a glass bottle and close tightly. Set it aside in a dark place for 5 or 6 days. If you want it stronger, let it steep longer. When the alcohol is lemony enough, add some simple syrup (sugar and water boiled to the syrup stage), about 1 part syrup to 3 parts alcohol. Strain it through a sieve, strain it again through a coffee filter, and store it.

How to make flavor pearls 

Mix 1 teaspooon sodium alginate with 1 cup desired liquid (we used Campari). Stir vigorously until dissolved. Mix 2 teaspoons calcium chloride with 2 cups of distilled water. Chill thoroughly. Using a squeeze bottle or plastic syringe, push drops of the flavored liquid into the calcium water. Let set a few minutes, then strain off liquid and rinse gently. Float on a drink. Impress everyone.

How to make bitters

Bitters are essential to mixology. Keep a bottle of Angostura on hand, but try making your own—Frida’s Stephanie Hatfield makes chocolate-chipotle bitters. Here’s a simple recipe—but the fun is experimenting. Place 8 oz. citrus zest in a mason jar. Add a teaspoon each of whole cardamom and coriander, some star anise or caraway. Cover with 2 cups of high-proof white alcohol, seal the jar and let stand in a cool, dark place for two weeks. Strain through cheesecloth and use.

Taking this one from my good friend Val Rasmussen, who wrote this recipe for an issue of Utah Bride & Groom.

Seared Romanesco, just one of the recipes served by caterters The Blended Table, partnering with Chef Tom Grant of Martine.

Ingredients

• 4 heads romanesco
  salt and pepper
  2 cloves garlic
  olive oil
  herbes de Provence

Instructions

Trim the outer leaves of the romanesco, then blanch for three to five minutes in boiling water or until tender. Immediately, chill in an ice bath.  Heat olive oil, garlic and seasoning in a saute pan, add romanesco and sear until golden brown.

PUMPKIN SAGE RISOTTO WITH WILD MUSHROOMS

Ingredients

1 small pie pumpkin (also known as sugar pumpkin)
4 cups chicken stock
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoon olive oil
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 cup Arborio rice
1⁄2 cup dry white wine plus 1 tablespoon for mushrooms
1 scallion, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon fresh sage, chopped
1⁄4 cup Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
Salt and ground pepper to taste
8 ounces wild mushrooms, sliced

Garnish

3 tablespoons toasted pumpkin seeds
Parmesan shavings

Instructions

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Cut pumpkin in half, scrape out seeds and place cut-side down on baking sheet lined with lightly oiled parchment paper. Bake until soft, about 30 minutes. Allow pumpkin to cool. Scrape pumpkin from skin, mash pumpkin and discard the skin. Set pumpkin aside.

Heat chicken stock in saucepan until barely simmering. In a large saute pan, melt 1 tablespoon each of butter and olive oil over medium-low heat. Add shallot and sauté until soft. Add rice, increase heat to medium, and cook, stirring constantly, for about 1 minute. Add 1⁄2 cup wine and cook, stirring, until wine is nearly absorbed. Add chicken stock, about 1⁄2 cup at a time, cooking and stirring after each addition until stock is nearly absorbed. When 2 cups of stock has been added, add pumpkin (you should have about 1-–1 1⁄2 cups mashed pumpkin). Add remaining stock 1⁄2 cup at a time (you may not need it all) until rice is creamy but still al dente (total cooking time is about 20 minutes). Stir in scallion, sage and Parmesan.

While risotto is cooking, melt 1 tablespoon each of butter and olive oil in small sauté  pan over medium-high heat. When butter is bubbling, add mushrooms. Sauté, stirring until they are soft. Add 1 tablespoon wine and cook until all wine has evaporated. Remove from heat.

Spoon mushrooms over risotto, top with pumpkin seeds and Parmesan curls; serve immediately. Serves 4.

After years of big family meals around a big bird, we treasure our new tradition, Thanksgiving for two (not counting the cat) in the trailer in the middle of nowhere.

In our 1956 vintage Shasta trailer (commonly known as a canned ham), we are home for the holidays, wherever we’re parked.

The thing is, as much as I love camping, I don’t love making any culinary concessions to it. No freeze-dried food for me. The Shasta has a tiny oven and 3 propane burners in its Princess stove, and I use it all. With a minimum of at-home prep, I dish out a pretty full feast-day menu–this year, loin of pork stuffed with herbs and nuts, mashed potatoes with garlic, roasted sweet potatoes, blistered peppered green beans, green salad with balsamic vinaigrette and slivered apple, and hot rolls. A sip of High West Boureye before, Simonnet Febvre cremant and Meiomi pinot noir during.

The only tricky part is the hot rolls–and fresh bread is essential to any meal even pretending to mark an occasion much less merit the name of “feast”– but my second favorite biscuit recipe gets me through that, and provides fresh cinnamon rolls for breakfast, too.

My favorite biscuit recipe is of course my mother’s–proper, very short, flaky biscuits that are fantastic when they’re hot but turn to clunkers overnight. I need something hardier to bake on the road and I use this Dallas Junior League cookbook standby, called “angel biscuits.” With three different leavenings, they’re bound to rise, and the yeast means you can keep the dough, chilled, for a day or so. I make a batch of dough, divide it in three, stuff it in Ziplocs, and pack it in the icebox.

When it’s time to eat, just pat it out, cut it in squares so there’s no scraps, and bake. For cinnamon rolls, I pat it out, sprinkle it with brown sugar, nuts and cinnamon, roll it up and slice it. Bake these in a buttered pan, so the sugar doesn’t stick. You can also put a pat of butter on a square or round of dough and fold over for pocket rolls.

Fantastic.

Ingredients:

1 package active dry yeast

2 cups buttermilk

5 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup granulated sugar (I use a little less)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon salt

1 cup chilled shortening (I use butter)

Preheat oven to 400.

Directions:

In a large mixing bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, yeast and salt. Cut in butter or shortening until mixture resembles coarse meal, with some small pea-size pieces of fat. Stir in buttermilk, blending well. Knead lightly. Pat out to about 1/2-inch thick. Cut in squares or with biscuit cutter or proceed for cinnamon rolls. Place cut out biscuits on a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake at 400° for about 15 to 20 minutes. Makes about 2 to 3 dozen  biscuits, depending on size.

Usually, bruschetta calls to mind the flavors of summer-grill smoke, ripe tomatoes and fresh basil. But bruschetta is a great cold weather nosh or appetizer, too. The secret is mushrooms.

Ingredients

1 baguette, sliced diagonally

3 to 4 Tbsp. olive oil

3 minced garlic cloves

1 pound mixed mushrooms, sliced or chopped into similar-sized pieces

3 Tbsp. fresh thyme leaves

1 bunch fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped

Instructions

Toast the bread slices. Gently sauté the garlic in the olive oil until it’s soft, then add the mushrooms and turn up the heat. Cook 3 or 4 minutes, season with salt and pepper and remove from heat. Stir in the parsley and thyme and spoon the mushrooms over the toast. You can spread the toast with soft goat cheese or ricotta before spooning on the mushrooms. You can add a couple of teaspoons of balsamic vinegar to the mushrooms while they cook. You can crumble blue cheese over the mushrooms. We could go on and on with variations, but you get the idea.

Thank Utah Style & Design editor Brad Mee for this great idea for figs, along with the rest of the copy in this post:

Contrary to what many people feel, figs are not frightening. There is so much to do with this luscious, exotic fruit. But don’t wait to give them a go. The highly perishable fruit won’t be around long. While in Whole Foods Market this morning, I noticed the fabulous display of fresh figs. Does this give you any ideas? If you need a bit of a nudge, here is an appetizer I recently made with figs – maybe it will inspire you to fashion one of your own.

Begin with goat cheese, fresh mint, fresh figs, and prociutto

Toast slices of rustic Italian bread and top with olive oil.

Spread goat cheese on each bread slice and top with prociutto, a “smashed” fig (releasing the flesh), and chopped mint. Drizzle with olive oil.

Serve on a rusic serving board and enjoy!