Happy New Year everyone! I hope your holidays lived up to your expectations. In My Kitchen is part of a collection of blog posts listed on Sherry’s Pickings. The posts come from around the world, describing kitchens and what is cooking from both hemispheres. Want to know the latest food trend in Australia and how they manage Christmas in mid-summer? Take a peak, it makes for fascinating reading if you are a foodie.

December was a busy month for me, making gifts and party food to share with friends and family. My responsibility at the feast included trays of roasted vegetables. Most of them were eaten on the day, but I did bring home some leftovers which I used to make this lovely stuffed sandwich.

Our annual New Year’s Day hike and chili party was up on the coast, a new location this year for the tradition. We hiked to the waterfall in Russian Gulch (now generously flowing after winter rains) and returned to a late lunch of chili, wine, salad and camaraderie.

Unfortunately the ground beef chili with beans was gone before I could take a picture. Both the chili and vegetarian tortilla soup were big successes. I will remake and post the traditional beef one as experienced tasters declared it the best they have ever had. No-leftovers attested to the truth of that statement.

So, what is new in my kitchen this month (or rather, mostly last month)?

Winter is citrus season, so I spent time preserving a glut of Meyer lemons (from our own tree), and a surprising gold mine of kumquats from the local grocery.

The lemon recipes can be found here, and the one for the candied preserved kumquats here.

I made a hot and sweet mustard, perfect gift giving and adding a punch to any kind of beef. Try it with roast beef or pot roast instead of horseradish.

I also made some sous vide lemon ginger curd. I’ve been making lemon curd for years but this is the first time I have used the sous vide method. The addition of some grated ginger added a little kick to the sweetness. There are a lot of recipes out there for making sous vide (in the water bath) lemon curd and I had a couple of colossal failures until I stumbled upon one that actually worked, the others resulted in a soupy mess and the loss of almost a dozen eggs. Look for a future post with pictures.

The holidays always bring me new cook books, my husband is well aware of my weakness for them.

In my kitchen I have…

You can read more about them on the following links:

Season

Salt Fat Acid Heat

Everyday Dorie

I’m looking forward to cooking and posting from them. Let me know if you have any of the books and can steer me to your favorite recipes.

In my kitchen I have sous vide turkey thigh confit. Organic and free range turkey thighs went on special after the holidays and I could not resist. Cooked for 24 hours sous vide they are absolutely delectable and rival duck confit in my opinion. They can also be shredded and as a lower fat replacement for pork carnitas. They freeze well once cooked (for that matter you can season them, vacuum pack them, then cook them while still frozen as well).

Now comes January, it’s time to step on the scale and take a reckoning. What has been the cost of the fun in 2018? Believe me it was all worth it. It was an eventful year. We enjoyed a cruise to Alaska and two weeks in Italy. There were  also a few more celebratory events such as the sale of our home in Oakland, a visit with a friend in Florida, and a week at the Ashland Oregon Shakespeare Festival (spent sampling wonderful restaurants and attending equally wonderful plays). The holidays (starting with my birthday in October) only added icing to the cake, so to speak. Time to clean up my act so I can enjoy our trip to Paris on the 31st of this month. I have almost 4 weeks to lose those extra pounds and I know how to do it.

Last January a few friends and I finished 28 days of the Fast Metabolic Diet. Collectively we lost over 50 pounds, plus reduced our cholesterol and blood sugar levels. It works. Don’t go to her website, I feel she has sold out to big business. The book and suggestions however, work. They come from the early days of her nutrition consulting business when she cared more about her clients than making money.

I am doing this with the same two friends as last January, please join us. I will post the best recipes but you can find additional posts if you look in my category “fast metabolism” on the right of the blog. The diet works and you will feel fantastic. One of my friends has continued to improve her health (and reduce her weight) through all of 2018 by following a very modified version of the diet for the whole year (even including a generous Manhattan on Friday nights).

And myself, I am still below my weight of a year ago but in need of a tune up. Those half dozen pounds don’t feel good in my clothes, and my sugar and alcohol consumption levels have crept up over the year. It is time for a re-set.

You can read my post from January of last year, describing the program here. It’s easy to focus on what you are not supposed to eat (dairy, wheat, refined carbs, soy, alcohol, sugar and caffeine) but what you do eat is whole grains, lots of vegetables, lean meat, beans, and fruit. In 28 days you will find your tastebuds have been “reprogramed”, you will taste the natural sugar in food. I promise you, it happened to all of us.

Thank you for visiting. Again, I wish you a happy new year full of health and happiness. It won’t hurt to add prayers for peace, sanity and compassion in the world of politics as well.