26 Video Views·Dec 17, 2023
Hello, friends -- Please join me today as I prepare an ancient beverage called "Wassail." Also included in this episode are THREE super-simple (and super-delicious!) nibbles. Recipes are written out below:
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CLASSIC WASSAIL
2 apples (such as 'Honey Crisp')
15-20 cloves for studding the apples
8 cups (1.9 liters) pure apple cider
2 cups (470mls) orange juice
1/3 cup (80mls) lemon juice
4 cinnamon sticks
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Stud the apples with the cloves, and then place the apples in a large pot or Dutch oven. Add the remaining ingredients, stir to combine, and then bring to a simmer on the stove top. Simmer for 30-40 minutes, and then strain and serve.
SAUSAGE AND CHEESE PUFF PASTRY PINWHEELS
1 sheet frozen Puff Pastry dough, thawed but cold
1 beaten egg
2/3 cup (a large handful) shredded cheese (melty cheeses such as "Italian Blend" or "Mexican Blend" work well here)
1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves or Italian seasoning
2 sweet Italian sausage links, cooked and crumbled
Preheat the oven to 400F (200C). Unfold the puff pastry dough, and then roll it out to remove creases.
Brush egg wash in a one inch border across the end of the dough that is the farthest away from you
Sprinkle the cheese and then the crumbled meat over the dough, taking care to avoid the strip of egg wash.
Starting at the end closest to you, tightly roll the pastry into a cylinder. The strip of egg wash will help the cylinder to hold together. (If the dough has softened considerably, chill it in the freezer for 5 minutes.)
Cut crosswise into 1/2-inch rounds; place each round on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
Bake until the pastry puffs and browns lightly --12-15 minutes. Serve hot, warm, or at room temperature.
SAUSAGE AND PINEAPPLE BITES
Polish Kielbasa or Turkey "Kielbasa"
1 can pineapple chunks
Thai sweet chili sauce in a squeeze bottle
Preheat oven to 350F (180C). Cut the sausage into 1/2 inch coins, topping each coin with a chunk of pineapple. Insert a wooden skewer or toothpick to hold the sausage and pineapple together. Place on a baking sheet, and heat for just 5 minutes in the preheated oven. Retrieve from oven and give the pineapple a short squirt of the chili sauce. Bake for additional 5 minutes . Serve hot, warm, or even cold.
CUCUMBER AND SMOKED SALMON BITES
1 English cucumber
Smoked salmon
2 tablespoons of softened cream cheese
Chopped fresh dill
Cut the cucumber into 1/4 - 1/2-inch rounds. Top each round with a small piece of the smoked salmon. Pipe a small dollop of the cream cheese on top of the salmon. Top with a small sprig of dill, gently pressing the dill against the cream cheese to secure it. Serve cold or at room temperature.
Hello everyone. I am so happy to see you again. Last night Mr. Fox and I hosted 40 of our friends
for drinks and nibbles. Everyone enjoyed the appetizers that were made by a local caterer.
Today I am going to make some very easy appetizers and also a classic beverage called
wassail that you and I can enjoy in front of a fire in the parlor. But before we get cracking
in the kitchen we need to take a short drive to the local orchard. I need fresh apples and
apple cider for the wassail recipe. We are headed to a large apple orchard called Golden Harvest Farm.
The farm makes the best cider from their very own apples.
The cider will be wonderful in the wassail we are going to make today.
Here is the cider and here are some honey crisp apples that I will add to the wassail.
I also bought some cider donuts just because.
We are home again and I am getting ready to make the wassail. Now wassail is going to make
this whole house smell terrific. The first thing I need to do is stud two of the honey crisp apples
with cloves. I am going to put about seven cloves in each apple.
Wassail has been around for centuries. It was popularized in the song,
here we come a-wassailing amongst the leaves of green. Love and joy come to you and to you
I think you know that song. So I put the apples in my dutch oven here. You could use any large
pot. Then I need to measure out eight cups or about 1.9 liters of the apple cider that we bought
at Golden Harvest Farm. In it goes. I am also going to add two cups or 470 mils of orange juice
and one third cup or 80 mils of pure lemon juice. You could use fresh squeezed or
this stuff. It's organic. For further perfume I am adding four cinnamon sticks.
This is aromatic brown bark. Then I need a quarter teaspoon of ground ginger
and another quarter teaspoon of ground or fresh nutmeg. Some recipes call for brown sugar but
I'm not going to add any sugar to this. I'm going to bring this to a simmer on the stovetop
and as I think I mentioned earlier it's going to fill my entire house with a glorious perfume.
On to the appetizers. The first one I'm going to make is sausage and cheese pinwheels.
It uses puff pastry and I have a couple of sweet Italian sausages here. You could use hot
Italian sausage. I'm going to remove the casing and then I'm going to saute the sausage itself.
On to the puff pastry. So this is one sheet of frozen but thawed puff pastry from a 490 gram
package. I'm going to roll this out just to remove the creases. Then brush one end of the
puff pastry with beaten egg. You want a one inch border here. The egg is the glue that will
hold the puff pastry together after we roll it up. Then I'm sprinkling the pastry with
about two-thirds of a cup or so of shredded cheese. You could use a Mexican blend of shredded cheese
or an Italian blend or really any good melty cheese that you like. Then I will sprinkle the
with some Italian seasoning. You could use just dried thyme leaves here.
Then add the cooled crumbled cooked sausage. Then roll the pastry into a tight cylinder.
If any of the filling falls out just tuck it back in. You can make these pinwheels well ahead of
time. Just wrap it up in parchment paper or in cling film and then pop it into the refrigerator
or even the freezer. Now my pastry dough has gotten very soft in this time so I'm going to
pop it into the freezer for just five minutes. Also pinch the ends to seal them. So my pastry
is nice and cold now and my oven is preheating to 400 degrees Fahrenheit
or 200 degrees Celsius. I'm going to slice this into oh half inch rounds
and transfer the rounds to a parchment lined baking sheet. I'm going to pop this into the
preheated oven until the pastry puffs and browns. That's going to take from 12 to 15 minutes.
These smell incredible. I cannot wait to tuck into one and I'm going to let these cool on a wire rack.
Next up is sausage and pineapple bites. These are super simple to make but they are surprisingly
delicious to eat. What I have here is one of those regular kielbasa type sausages that you can buy in
any supermarket. These are already cooked and I'm going to cut these into roughly half inch coins.
Now that my sausage coins are prepared I'm going to use some canned pineapple chunks to top the
coins. Sausage, pineapple, skewer and put this on a parchment lined cookie sheet. I'm going to bake
these for just five minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit or 180 degrees Celsius. After these
have baked for five minutes give them a drizzle of either teriyaki sauce or I'm going to try this
Thai sweet chili sauce. I'm definitely using oversized skewers here so it's kind of difficult
to drizzle this sauce but I made it work. So back into the oven for five minutes.
The Thai chili sauce has caramelized in the oven. These look terrific.
Before I move on to the next appetizer I want to tell you that the wassail that is simmering
on my stovetop is emitting the most glorious perfume. I can't wait for you to taste it.
This next appetizer requires no cooking at all. I'm making cucumber salmon bites. So I have a
hothouse or English cucumber here and I'm going to peel just certain sections of the cucumber
for decorative effect. Now I need to cut the cucumber into roughly quarter inch rounds
and transfer the rounds to a platter. Now I need some salmon. This is smoked salmon.
I'm going to cut it into little pieces. Cut the pieces just slightly longer than the cucumber
rounds and then fold the salmon so that it will sit on top of the cucumber. I will write
out the directions for each of these appetizers in the description below. I'm going to sprinkle
the salmon with some fresh dill and to make the dill stick I need a little bit of room temperature
cream cheese. So I put oh maybe two tablespoons of cream cheese in a little ziplock bag and then
I'm going to cut off the tip and squeeze just a little dollop on top of each appetizer.
Piping the cream cheese is a little easier said than done but you can work with it. Chop some dill.
Oh I love the scent of dill. Cucumber, dill, and smoked salmon. Perfect combination.
I like to scatter the platter with a bit of dill. Very chic and oh so simple to do. And here is the
wassail that has been simmering on the stove for the last 40 minutes or so. I'm removing the apples
they have given their all. Now I'm going to strain the mixture through a mesh sieve
right into my pitcher. I like to garnish the cups of wassail with apple slices and a stick
of cinnamon. To stop the apple slice from browning I am dipping it in lemon juice.
If you'd like spiked wassail you can absolutely add a sensible amount of brandy or whiskey or rum.
Let's head into the parlor to enjoy the fruits of our admittedly very little labor.
I'm all for Christmas all the happy smiles and the wishes
and I want it all from the lights to the mistletoe
tell me one thing is there anything that you're missing
I will keep you warm as soon as you remove that snow
whatever we do we will be all right these holiday wonders will open your mind
may all your wishes tonight come true
this Christmas I love to share nibbles and a drink with you and what a delicious drink it is
holy cow you have to try this I'm going to start with one of the cucumber and salmon bites
you cannot go wrong with this flavor combination now a sausage and pineapple bite
with the Thai chili sauce it's kind of a big bite that pineapple really melts in your mouth
and of course a sausage is absolutely delicious you know sausage is seasoned with garlic and herbs
oh it's just a wonderful flavor and finally a pinwheel a puff pastry pinwheel
I've never had a better puff pastry pinwheel I love the melty cheese and the sausage in these
pinwheels absolutely delicious a cold day a warm fire some delicious appetizers which honestly
were no trouble to make some classic wassail which may or may not be spiked at this point
life is very good thank you so much for hanging out with me today and I hope you are all having
a wonderful holiday season I can pop a couple of my other videos up here or up here that you can
watch between now and my next upload in the meantime take good care of yourself try one or
all of these appetizers and definitely try this wassail and I will see you in the next episode
bye friends
