At the end of the year, I always love to look back over the year and recall all the delicious recipes I’ve created that year. This year, once again, I find myself looking back on so many good food memories, good times shared with friends and family … but this year there were some big changes in my life too.
I started off 2018 playing with one of my favorite ingredients: mushrooms. I took it to a whole new level by making a mushroom pecan pâté. I took it to a yoga party and everyone raved over it!
And while I was playing with mushrooms, I also made a cheesy four-mushroom bisque that was super warm, creamy and satisfying. Perfect for the cold winter months!
Speaking of soup, in 2018 I made a scrumptious Sherried Butternut Soup with Bacon, a spicy New Mexico Green Chile Stew, a Taxi Tomato Blue Cheese Soup and (my personal favorite) Pepperoni Soup. It tastes like pepperoni pizza! I loved the pepperoni soup so much, I pressure canned it for Christmas gifts.
And, for Choctoberfest, I was challenged to make some savory with chocolate, so I made this Rosemary White Chocolate Butternut Soup … I know you’ll LOVE this one. The white chocolate lends a rich creaminess that you just can’t quite place your finger on …
I’d just started teaching yoga at the end of 2017, so in January 2018, I had a few friends over to do yoga and afterwards we enjoyed this Hummus Shawarma Layer Dip and shared a couple of cocktails. The dip has a zesty red pepper hummus on the bottom, topped with a nice thick layer of lemon tahini yogurt sauce, some chopped shawarma meat, fresh tomatoes and chopped green onions. I served it with homemade pita bread. Oh man that was good.
I made my sister (who’s also a foodie) some bacon morel mushroom salt for her birthday … she loved it! … and then later in 2018, I taught a spice workshop and that fabulous bacon salt was one of the seasonings we made. Previously I had been using store bought bacon salt which is pretty dang awesome, but it was way much more fun (and flavorful … and cost effective) to make it at home.
2018 was also the year I discovered boozy hot fudge sauce. In an effort to make some homemade fudge sauce my daughter would like, I created this Bailey’s Hot Fudge sauce … which is pretty dang ah-mazing, a thick, rich hot fudge sauce that made me want to leave Dairy Queen for good. Daughter totally agreed. We’d rather make my own hot fudge sundaes now. … And then later in the year, for Choctoberfest, I made a Rum Barrel Coconut Rum Porter Sauce made with a rum barrel aged porter beer. This fudge sauce is not as thick as the Bailey’s sauce, but the complex flavors from the barrel aged porter totally captivated me. I love them both and even though I really love a good thick hot fudge sauce, I think the porter sauce is my personal preference.
Speaking of boozy chocolate, I made a Bailey’s Chocolate Poke Cake for a friend for her birthday … oh. my. gosh. Thick rich chocolate cake, with a chocolate ganache filling and Bailey’s whipped cream on top! So decadent. We didn’t stop there, though … another work friend requested Boozy Rumchata Chocolate Pudding and I couldn’t help but grant that wish. That pudding is freaky good right away, but even better as a frozen treat. Oh, and then there was also a Boozy Chocolate Desserts roundup that I did for Choctoberfest. Over 32 recipes for boozy chocolate … yeah. Yum. Boozy chocolate might just be my happy place.
But 2018 wasn’t ALL about boozy desserts! There was also the discovery of this Clementine Rice & Kale Salad. People have told me that they didn’t expect to like it (from the name) and you know, maybe it might not be a salad you’d think to order at a restaurant (let alone make at home), but everyone that tastes it absolutely LOVES it. It’s got a fresh citrus taste with the crunch of almonds and celery, the sweetness of clementines and craisins and then the kale for greens and a hint of bitterness. The rice is the surprise ingredient that soaks up the dressing so it’s even better the next day. I have made this salad several times this year … once for myself, once for cooking class and most recently for Christmas dinner at my friend’s house. She asked me to bring salad and dessert. She and her family loved the salad so much that she decided to make it as a thank you to a friend who rescued her precious instruments when she was out of town. She texted me a picture of the salad the day she got home and it was just gorgeous. I love it when I can inspire a friend to get in the kitchen and make something fabulous.
Other salads I loved this year were my Smokehouse Kale & Tomato Salad with Bacon, Simple Lemony Kale Salad, Spinach Salad with Hot Bacon Dressing (totally nailed it!), a gorgeous Mediterranean Lamb Salad and a scrumptious Avocado Chicken Caesar Salad. Oh and I also must mention my Mothership Cucumber Tomato Caprese Salad with Basil Rosemary Marinated Mozzarella. That was spectacular … and the marinated mozzarella was quite popular with my followers. And my Mediterranean Mixed Bean & Artichoke Salad was superb too.
And yeah, in 2018 I made some fabulous pizza! I made this delightful Chicken Bacon Ranch Pizza with a zucchini crust … a healthy pizza that tastes totally decadent. I used my homemade sun dried tomato ranch pesto and a creamy bacon ranch sauce on top of that, then topped it with chicken and bacon and cheese, with a little kale. My tasted buds are reveling in the memory…
And later in the year, I finally perfected Pepperoni Pinwheels … my son’s favorite appetizer. Bite-size pizza roll-ups perfect for dipping in marinara sauce and serving to crowds. I made them for my son … and then took them to our yoga Christmas party … and then to the Christmas party at the museum … and then I took them to Christmas with the family. They were well received everywhere they went. (If you want a vegetarian version, use pesto in place of the pepperoni and add a sprinkle of red pepper flakes before rolling up–the yoga friends gobbled up my pesto version even faster than the pepperoni.)
In the summer when the zucchini was plentiful, I made Hasselback Pepperoni Pizza Zucchini … you’ve GOT to try this next time you have a bunch of zucchini. It’s pepperoni pizza in a fun hasselback fashion … it’s super easy and it’s healthy and helps use up some of that excess zucchini from the garden.
And then, right at the end of the year, I made this fabulous Butternut Alfredo pizza with prosciutto, red onions, pine nuts and kale. I have to say this is my personal favorite pizza of the year. I love the sweetness of the squash with the creamy alfredo sauce, salty prosciutto, tangy goat cheese and red onion, with a bit of kale for greens. It’s such a good combination.
This year I also said goodbye to a special work friend (Patrick) who died after suffering with cancer for many months. His specialty was Scotch Eggs, so I made (and posted) his scotch egg recipe as a tribute to him. But then my son fell in love with them and it became a thing we made in our house regularly for several months. Every time I made my boy a Scotch egg, I thought of Patrick. Patrick was so intelligent, with quick wit and a great sense of humor. He had totally mastered the Scotch Egg and I’m so grateful that he shared his tips for making Scotch Eggs with me while he was still alive. I miss him.
On the lighter side, I also discovered that my lemon tahini yogurt sauce is pretty dang delicious over Smoky Lemon Roasted Salmon and that a bit of cherry and pomegranate juice with sparkling water makes a light and refreshing agua fresca.
For some reason, St. Patrick’s Day is always a thing we MUST celebrate. I’m not Irish (to my knowledge), but I do feel drawn to Ireland and Celtic art and music. This year for St. Patty’s Day, I made Reuben Bites with homemade thousand island dressing, Reuben lettuce wraps, (hurrah for a light crunchy version of the Reuben sandwich!), Lemon Garlic Roast Leg of Lamb (my first lamb dish on the blog … it turned out perfect.) and Breakfast Colcannon. (The angels should totally sing for breakfast colcannon! There’s already a colcannon song … but add an egg for breakfast and I’m in heaven) … oh and there was also a Hot & Cheesy Reuben Dip made with the leftover corned beef. Nom nom snack snack munch munch.
And then there came April and a plethora of birthdays, including a coworker, so keeping with the office tradition, I just HAD to make a boozy birthday cake for her. She said she likes strawberry shortcake and we chatted a bit and decided that lemon goes good with strawberries and so that’s how this Limoncello Strawberry Shortcake with Limoncello Sauce happened. The cake was good, but the sauce totally took it over the top. I totally had to lick the sauce off the plate, it was so good. I did use my finger, but yeah, some coworkers definitely caught me lapping up the sauce. LOL.
My daughter’s birthday is in April, too, and she has several vegetarian friends so I had to come up with a vegetarian solution for them while my daughter the carnivore was enjoying her pork schnitzel. I made them some seriously awesome black bean and rice burgers and they LOVED them! They ate them all and gave me loads of compliments.
Also in April, my kids and I took a trip to Florida and we went to Harry Potter world and they totally loved the butterbeers. I totally had to go home and replicate THAT … in cocktail form! A Butterbeer Cocktail … ta da!
May was National Burger Month and I participated in a huge burger blogger event. I concocted a Creole Seafood Stuffed Burger for the occasion … an epic burger stuffed with a creamy, cheesy spicy seafood filling (with shrimp, crab and smoked salmon), more cheese, spicy creole remoulade sauce, sauteed sweet peppers and jalapeno and sauteed mushrooms. I’m getting a huge burger craving just thinking about it …
At the end of June I lost my job after being at the same place for almost 6 years. I tried not to take it personally because they’d been doing a lot of layoffs (specifically laying off the more experienced employees), but it was hard. I did my best to enjoy my time off during the summer (while job hunting) and did a lot of water walking, a lot of yoga (my empty schedule left lots of time to teach). The other benefit of having no job was I had plenty of time to do a lot of delicious cooking and blogging. I invited my foodie friends to collaborate with me on posts and you’ll find many of my mid-2018 posts contain loads of links to other delicious recipes.
My kids and I took the opportunity of all the time off to make another vacation trek to Lake of the Ozarks where my daughter was tempted by french toast with bourbon apples on the menu at a restaurant we visited there. Except when she ordered them, the waiter told her they only serve that on the weekends (and of course, we weren’t staying that long). So I promised her I would make her bourbon apples when we got home. It took me a few months (until apple season), but I did it! And she was very, very happy. I also made a bourbon apple pie for Christmas later in the year, simply by thickening the apples from this recipe with some cornstarch and throwing it in a pie crust.
In the heat of the summer when I had some delicious fresh garden tomatoes from my mom and dad’s garden, I made some taco stuffed tomatoes topped with sriracha ranch and crushed Doritos. Seriously amazing and so pretty too! This was one of my collaborative posts and it contains over 30 delicious low carb recipes.
And I had TONS of eggplant from my mom as well, so I made some grilled eggplant gyros with homemade Greek seasoning … they turned out even better than the meat-filled gyros in my book. It might have had something to do with all the garden fresh garden veggies I used … I really really love it when the veggies are fresh from the garden. They taste SO much better. (Both of the above-mentioned posts include loads more delicious plant-based and seasoning recipes from me and my foodie friends …)
Other eggplant creations from 2018 included Eggplant Caprese Pizza (I made this several times … it was so easy and so wonderful and such a great way to use up excesses of eggplant), an Eggplant Breakfast BLT (with oven-fried slices of eggplant in place of the bread), meatless Eggplant Meatballs, a hearty Wild Garden Beefy Rice Casserole that had superb flavors, Tunisian Garden Mini Quiches (made with my homemade smoky Harissa Paste) and Baked Creole Eggplant Fries with creole remoulade dipping sauce. I made many batches of the fries and froze them, so I’m still enjoying them in January. Mmmm … eggplant fries.
September and harvest season were super busy with cooking projects too. My dad’s apricot tree produced loads of apricots again this year, so I brought some home and made Brandied Ginger Apricot Jam and Roasted Apricot Maple Ice Cream. Fabulous! Other harvest favorites were my Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl Zucchini Cake and meatless Zucchini “Meatballs”.
And oh my gosh you guys, there were Bacon & Egg Stuffed Peppers! Once I discovered these lovelies, I made these for myself for breakfast every day until I ran out of peppers … they were SO flipping good.
October came along and there was #Choctoberfest which I totally rocked this year. My most popular post from this year’s #Choctoberfest was this Double Chocolate Pear Tart, but I also made some Peanut Butter Smookies that I was quite smitten with.
By the way, I did get a new job in October … I’m working from home now for a company based in Mankato and I’m quite happy there. I also feel like there’s room to grow in that position, where in my last job I was stuck at the top of my position with nowhere to go. So I remind myself that things that seem bad at the time are often blessings in disguise.
Another lucky thing that happened to me in 2018 is I met a lady who sells Raclette cheese and Raclette grills. I told her about my blog and she gave me a lovely raclette grill and a bunch of raclette cheese to try out. I’m a total cheese addict so I was super excited to learn how to “raclette”. My first raclette recipe was this Grilled Pesto Shrimp with veggies & raclette cheese … seriously fantastic! I also took the raclette grill up to my mom and dad’s over Thanksgiving and we had a little raclette party where we grilled venison, squash, onions and peppers with potatoes, topped of course with the lovely melty cheese. I didn’t get any photos of that party so you won’t find it on the blog, but it was super fun.
I wrapped up my delicious year with some Maple Roasted Beets, a Sensational Seafood Stuffing, Maple Bourbon Cocktail Meatballs (which I took to the Christmas event at the museum and they totally disappeared in a flash), Rosemary Sage Roasted Butternut Squash and some totally addictive Chocolate Toffee Roasted Peanuts that I made for holiday gifts for people this year.
And that pretty much sums up my food journey of 2018! There were more recipes, too … I can’t cover them all in one post, but I gave you a good sampling of my most delicious moments. I hope you had a delicious year as well and I’m looking forward to sharing some more food adventures with you in 2019. Happy New Year, dear foodie friends!
