Coq Au Vin Fondue

Description:

A cooking style favored in the French countryside. It combines the flavors of fresh herbs, mushrooms, garlic, and a hearty Burgundy Wine

Coq Au Vin Fondue

Origin: Diane's Favorites

Yield: 2-4 servings
Prep Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:
● 3 1/2 cups vegetable stock
● 1/2 cup Burgundy wine
● 1/2 cup fresh mushrooms, sliced
● 1 Tbsp. fresh garlic, minced
● 2 green onions, sliced
● fresh herbs, to taste

Directions:
Heat vegetable stock in fondue pot until it begins to simmer. Add all other ingredients, bring to simmer. Place individual pieces of desired meat or veggies on fondue fork and put in pot until correct temperature has been reached. Lobster and shrimp may take under a minute to cook while beef, pork and chicken will take slightly longer. Also use a slotted spoon to put halved red potatoes in bottom of pot to cook as you are cooking your meat and seafood. Take the necessary precautions so you don't eat raw meat!

Cheddar Beer Fondue

Cheddar Beer Fondue
Origin: Diane's Favorites

Ingredients:

● 1 lb. sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
● 1 Tbsp. flour
● 1 1/2 tsp. dry mustard
● dash cayenne pepper, or add a dash of hot sauce to the melted mixture
● 3/4 cups beer
● 2 tsp. worcestershire sauce

Directions:

In bowl, combine cheese, flour, mustard and ground cayenne pepper; mix to blend well. In fondue pot, combine beer and Worcestershire sauce. Set temperature to 375℉ and heat to bubbling. Gradually add cheese mixture and stir constantly until cheese melts and mixture is smooth, about 5 minutes. Reduce temperature to 200℉ and serve with crusty bread and other dippers i.e. green apples, raw carrots and raw cauliflower.

I like Salt!!

Okay I am slacking again!  I'm trying to keep up with my blog, but I get so darn busy all the time. 

Let's see, Santa was very good to us this year! Steve gave me a beautiful white gold ring with 7 diamonds and some Gwen Stephanie "Lamb" Perfume that I had asked for.  Oh, also his annual Victoria's Secret gift! I got him a Garmin GPS, which he loves!  Santa was good to the kids also..my daughter got an electric scooter and my son got the Nintendo ds Lite that he wanted.

  

I already told you what occurred once we got up to Red River, but I wanted to share this picture with you, so you could see that my prayers were answered. We had lots of snow!

This is a view from the porch at our house.

This is a picture of the city of Red River that I took on my one downhill run skiing from the top!

Well it was fun while it lasted!

We came back to Albuquerque and tried to get everyone well for New Years. Our tradition with the kids for New Years Eve is to do fondue. We go all out and do a cheese fondue, an array of meats and seafood fondue, and a chocolate dessert fondue. The kids love it and it is a good way to keep the old folks ( yes, I am talking about me!) awake until midnight!  I will share some of my recipes for fondue in the next post.   I have 5 fondue pots that I use. One for cheese, three for the meat (one peanut oil and the other two for a broth based cooking), and one for dessert.  It's alot of work, but I enjoy getting everything together and spending the evening with my family.  

After New Years we were off to lower ground!  We ended up staying in Scottsdale for two nights as my daughter came down with a fever and sore throat. We did manage to make it out to two really good restaurants while were were there. 

The first one the hotel recommended to us and told us it was kid friendly. Well it wasn't, but because both of kids were tired and not feeling all that great, they

 did not eat, but mostly slept on the booth beside us. So it worked out okay. The restaurant was called, The Salt Cellar, and was located underground. Very Cool. 

Here is a picture of the outside of it.... It doesn''t look like much from the outside. When you walk in the door you walk down a case of stairs and you enter a very quaint restaurant. They serve very fresh seafood. I had Gulf Shrimp and Filet Mignon. It was delicious! Highly recommend if you are ever in Scottsdale, but leave the kids behind!

The next night we went into Old Town Scottsdale and ate at a restaurant called The Salty Senorita.  Don't ask me how we came up with two restaurants with the word "salt" in them, but we did. Anyway, it was another winner!  The food was excellent. I have never seen such an extensive listing of Margarita's. 

So that does it for our trip. We made it home all in one piece and somehow managed to get all our loot home also. All and all, we had a nice holiday, in spite of the illnesses of my family. Now if we can just find a place to put it all!  

The Price We Pay....

Well I think we are all doing better now!  It's been a long couple of weeks for me.  The doctors ended up diagnosing Steve with "pulmonary and cerebral edema", a very severe case of acute mountain sickness which left untreated could have caused death!  So I am very happy that we were able to get him to a hospital and get the necessary treatment for him. This type of altitude sickness is rare, and occurs when people ascend too quickly and go above 9000 ft.  Our house is just at 9000 feet in Red River. We ended up going on our snowmobiling excursion the first full day we were there and it took us up to Greenie Peak which is at 11,000 feet. This is what probably did Steve in!  Hopefully with some medications upfront and taking things a little more slowly, we'll be able to make it back up there some day in the future. 

Let's see, going to back up a bit prior to Christmas... We had a wonderful evening out, at the Newport Harbor Boat Parade. This was our first year to experience one of the best boat parades in the world. We rented a boat and along with some good friends of ours, we set sail around the harbor admiring all the decorated homes and boats in the harbor. 

 

Here are a few pictures:

It was a wonderful time had by all and a great way to get in the holiday spirit!

With that we were set to go on our vacation. We set out with a car and car-top carrier packed to the brim.  Our first night we spent in Flagstaff, Arizona. There was lots of snow there so the kids got to play in the snow right away, so that was very exciting for them. Every time we are in Flagstaff we like to go out to Black Bart's Steakhouse and Saloon.  It's a very casual western type atmosphere. While you dine, the waiters and waitresses (music students from the university) get up on stage and sing old time favorites and  songs from different shows. The kids love it and it is something different than your usual steakhouse. The food is pretty good also. 

There was actually more snow in Flagstaff than there was in Albuquerque. I was a little surprised that Albuquerque had so little snow, so I knew that I wanted to head up to the mountains in Red River as soon as possible to enjoy playing in the snow. We had a really nice Christmas Eve with my parents. Here is a picture of their house in Albuquerque with luminaries in their front yard.

We went to Old Town Albuquerque to see the lighting of the luminaries, a New Mexican tradition. Then we had a nice dinner at The World Famous El Pinto Restaurant.  They gave us a table right in front of a big fireplace so we stayed warm and toasty during our entire meal. They make the best salsa. In fact this is one of my favorite salsa's that I can find out here at our local grocery store. Here is what it looks like:

Santa made his appearance sometime during the night!  One little 8 year old boy in our family snuck out sometime during the middle of the night after Santa had been there and took a sneak peek at his Santa Gifts. He tried to get his sister to go out in the den to check it out also, but she didn't want to have anything to do with him. Too Funny... that's our son!!

Okay this is getting long, so I will quit for now. I have lots to tell you so please check back. I have a few recipes I want to put up also. 

Oh, one more thing... I am really, really grumpy at our grocery stores...Prices of food in California are skyrocketing out of sight...$1.89/lb. for a head of cauliflower...at 2 1/2 lbs, that is approximately $4.75 for one head. OUTRAGEOUS! I had it in my hand, then weighed it and then reconsidered and put it back. Just couldn't get myself to pay that much for a vegetable!

SIGH!