Merry Christmas!
What a sexy, decandent and lovely little ball to have around during the toasts tonight. These go very well with champagne. They are so easy to make and you can roll them in different toppings. My mom always made these at Christmas and rolled them in confectionars sugar but I have added dark cocoa and pistachios. There are a lot of recipes around for bourbon balls and rum balls but I think this is one of the best I’ve come across and very similar to my friend Karen French’s extraordinary bourbon balls. Here’s to all of you with chocolate and champagne!
Bourbon Balls
- 1 cup of pecans or walnuts – toasted
- 2 cups of vanilla wafers
- 1/2 cup of confectionars sugar
- 2 tab of cocoa powder
- 1 1/2 tab of light corn syrup
- 1/4 cup of bourbon
Toppings: pistaschios, cocoa powder & confectionars sugar
Toast the nuts in a small saucepan
In a food processor chop the vanilla wafers and nuts. Add the sugar to combine, then the corn syrup and bourbon. Mix all well and refridgerate for a couple of hours. Now the fun, roll the balls into small rounds and then into desired topping.
Boeuf Bourguignon and Beef Stew and are both homey, hearty, comforting and delicious dishes. They are similar, but Beef stew is more simple and American. Boeuf Bourguignon has a French name and it is a little more elegant with the addition of cognac, red wine and bacon and is famous because of 
Cabrito, kid, chevon, are all names for baby goat. And whatever you want to call it I don’t eat it or cook it. BUT our friend Mike McIntosh and his lovely wife Julie Wickett invited us over Sunday afternoon for a bbq and that is what they were serving. Jesse and Dashiell were up for it so off we went. I tasted a small bite of the cabrito and it was delicious. I know I just said that I don’t eat baby goats but I had to try it because Mike is so sweet. Mike smoked it for hours in a special smoker that you add water to so the meat was moist and succulant. Our friend Tim made the tastiest pinto beans I’ve ever had. He did not skimp on the salt pork and they were really a meal in themselves. Julie made a lovely peach sorbet for dessert that hit the spot on this summer evening. I made fatoush, a Lebonese bread salad. Fatoush can be made with lettuce or not and adding garbanzo beans works too. I did add the lettuce this time, however, I have made it in the past with just the tomatoes, cucumbers and spring onions.
Once a month I get together with 10 or so brilliant, witty and beautiful womem to discuss a book that we’ve read. We all bring wine and or an appetizer and some of the most delicious desserts I’ve ever tasted. This month it’s at my house so I’m serving an olive plate and roma tomatoes. I baked the tomatoes slowly for hours and then added some buffalo mozzerella and fresh basil. This is a good recipe for store bought tomatoes that don’t always have a lot of flavor. It’s kind of like making them into sun dried tomatoes but in the oven.