Chef Sandy and New Year's Eve Charcuterie!

 Hullo!!! It's New Year's Eve and we are having an evening of nibbles!

Or as we would say... charcuterie! There's a nice wheel of brie...

And we are making bacon-wrapped dates stuffed with pecans... And bacon-wrapped water chestnuts!

We got a cheese sampler pack... some beary good choices!

And then there's so pickles and olives... some dolmas.... and a couple of jellies to put on the cheeses!

It's all looking beary yummy!

While we wait for the bacon-wrapped stuff... I really like out tree this year... with the stuffies.

Koby likes it too! As much as he likes anything. He's a bit of a grumpy-old-man type of cat!

Ah, here we go!!! Bacon-wrapped dates and pecans... yum!!

We had these at a little restaurant in Amsterdam... sooo delicious. I mean, who can go wrong with bacon-wrapped anything???!!

Wishing everyone....

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Chefs Sandy and Little Fox at Work Again!

 Hullo!! Soooo... we were putting the garden to bed and... found some potatoes that had got left behind. They are big!!!! But... 

A bit buggy... so we thought... what can we do with them... and LF came up with the idea of potato-leek soup!

So we supervised the cutting up of potatoes....

And we have some leeks from the store. Ours never get this big!

We are keeping the tough leek tops for soup broth...

Now we saute the leeks in some butter...

And get a bunch of frozen chicken broth ready...

Looking good!

Now comes the messy bit... we have to blend the soup to make it nice and creamy... we'll let the human do this...

There's the first batch...

And we put a tea towel on top just in case stuff leaks out the top hatch.

This is exciting!

Beary! My pal, Reindeer, would love this soup!

Beary nice and creamy...

Anybody want to come over for a hot bowl of soup?

We could even put some crumbles of crispy bacon on top...

Yum!!!

Chefs Sandy and Little Fox Bake a Quiche

 Hullo! We have guests coming over and... we need to feed them! So we decided to do a quiche.

We have the recipe... it's not that hard.

We are also going to use some special ingredients in our quiche.

First, some Gruyere cheese, because it is soooo flavourful and great in a quiche.

And some salmon!! We have some hot smoked salmon which we will use as a topping...

And then we have some regular tail bits of salmon which we will bake separately so it comes off the skin...

What do you think? We think it will be amazing!

We are also putting in some chopped spinach... cause you do need some pretty greens in there...

We have a gluten free pie shell... no we did not bake this ourselves.

And we have the salmon all ready to go.

And all the other ingredients... let's mix it up!

Don't you feel like you are on a cooking show?

"I feel like this salmon needs to be tasted... multiple times!!"

We are also prepping at topping four spinach salad... candied pecans!

Nuts and sweets... can't go wrong!

They turned out pretty good... maybe we need to taste test them??

Let's go! 

And... the quiche are in the oven!

Our gluten free pie crust wasn't quite a deep dish pie shell so we had too much filling... that's OK... we made a little crustless quiche on it's own.

What do you think??? Smells yummy!

Guests voted the quiche and salad a hit! Oh... and we had pumpkin pie too! Yum!

Two Mice Question What to do with Tomatillos

 Hullo!!! Navy and Cocoa here!! Sandy is still away visiting Little Fox and we are left to handle things while he is gone. Today's problem du jour (problem of the day) is... what does one do with tomatillos??? After much perusing...

We settled on a roasted tomatillo salsa verde...

It can't be that hard, right??? And we have a human to do the icky bits!

First... we pull the paper husks off of the tomatillos. Did you know they are more closely related to gooseberries than tomatoes? Strange... and sticky!

OK... that's all done! And we have 14 oz of tomatillos which is perfect.

Then we got the human to wash them so the stickiness is washed off... and put them on a roasting tray.

Then we needed half a jalapeno and some onion... this is also a human job!

But we can wrap the garlic in foil!

And put it in the toaster oven for 15 minutes or so...

Let's see... what else do we need...

Some cilantro!

Are we there yet?

Almost... cilantro into the food processor and some lime juice... now we just need the roasted veg...

Almost done!

There we go!! See how the tomatillos are sort of olive coloured? That's what we want... and all soft and squishy too.

Now we just need the garlic out of it's little nest... 

And then whaz it up in the food processor!!!! 

It was super yummy!!! Very fresh! 10/10 for the Mice Chefs!