Gingerbread Hot Chocolate

This is my new favorite drink for the holidays!

Cast of characters:

VE Moka Hot Chocolate (or any other kind of hot chocolate, but this one is better ;))
VE Gingerbread Syrup (made from our Gingerbread spice)
frothed milk (with our frother or whatever you have on hand)
VE Sugar Grinder of your choice (my favorite is the mexicoco, but we are sold out now!)

Make Hot Chocolate as according to directions, add 1 tsp of gingerbread syrup per cup. Top with frothed milk, a dollop of whipped cream if you have it and grind some yummy sugar over top. Our Gingerbread Syrup makes a GREAT gift for teachers with the spice and a new mug! Think of the hundreds you can save on premium latte's and hot chocolate.

ENJOY!!

Somethin Sweet - Yesterday's recipe

So I made myself some VE chai tea yesterday, and thought...hmmm, I should make a nice chai loaf. If you are making chai tea, this is an easy throw together loaf to use up that leftover tea leaves!

What I do, is when I have made my tea, I add some more water and a splash of milk to my leftover leaves and let them sit and simmer while I am drinking my chai. Then its super easy to whip this up!

Cast of characters:

From Spicin it up with Julie

Here is the recipe:

Chai Tea loaf

1 cup raisins
2 cups brewed and cooled VE Chai tea (brewed as per jar, no
sweetener needed)
2 1/2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
2 1/2 tsp.VE Baking powder
1 tsp. VE Sea salt
1 tsp. VE Cinnamon
1/2 tsp. VE Poudre Douce
1/8 tsp. VE Black pepper
1/2 cup room temp. butter
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 tbsp. Chai tea

Soak raisins in the chai tea and set aside for 1/2 hour. Preheat
oven to 350F. Sift flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, poudre
douce and black pepper. Sifting is important to aerate the ingredients as
there are no eggs in this loaf. Cut the butter into the flour mixture until
it is a coarse meal consistency. Add soaked raisins and chai tea liquid
(reserving 1 tbsp for glaze) to the dry ingredients. Mix until just blended.
Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake at 350F for 50-60 minutes. When a
skewer comes out clean, it's done.
Turn loaf out onto a VE cooling rack and let it cool. If glazing
the top, then poke holes in the top with a skewer. Mix the icing sugar with
enough chai tea to a glaze consistency. Using a VE pastry brush, brush
the glaze over the top of the chai tea loaf. Let dry and serve.

From Spicin it up with Julie

From Spicin it up with Julie

Today's recipe

Was a lunch recipe, but I also have a tip for you today as well.

For lunch I made chicken salad sandwiches. Now, this is a funny story actually. A long time ago, in Epicure land, I had a friend over for coffee. Her and I were chatting for hours and what started off as breakfast soon led to lunch. In typical Epicure fashion, I didn't worry because I knew I could throw something together. I had some left over baked chicken breasts from the night before so I decided to make some chicken salad.

As I was gabbing away, I went to my Epicure shelf and grabbed what I thought was lemon dilly and 3 onion, because I thought it would be good. (which I am sure it would be) and started mixing while I was talking. I threw in some celery and green onion and a bit of mayo, and then without measuring, sprinkled in some dip mix. Well.... imagine my horror when I saw bright yellow in the dish. I turned the jar and saw I had grabbed the Curry dip mix. I didn't want to look like a moron to my company so I went ahead and added the other and thought, ok, Epicure here is your real test. I looked at the other jar and saw it was Sundried Tomato and Herb. Now, before you say how could I not notice, understand that I often would just browse at the pictures and I was not exactly paying attention. Well, now that I have sufficiently rambled on...how the story ended was, I had accidentally made the BEST chicken salad ever...so much so, that I called my husband home from work to try it!

So give it a try, I don't think you will regret it!

Cast of Characters:

From Spicin it up with Julie

I basically eye ball this as always, but for the sake of others I would guess that its about:

3 breasts of left over chicken, (I like M&M breasts, but I have also used Kirkland breast in a can)
3 tbsp mayo, (I use light)
1 stalk of celery and green onion (I didn't have any)
and 1 tsp VE sundried tomato and herb and between 1/2 to one full tsp of VE curry dip mix.

Mix all together and let sit for about 10 minutes. I put mine on lightly toasted rye bread with some carrots sticks and a pickle. It was absolutely delicious! I tried to get a pic with my lunch in it, but my camera battery died. :(

From Spicin it up with Julie

Ok, here is yesterday's Epicure inspirations

So first of all, it was my son's 10th birthday party which meant homemade pizza. I have always made homemade pizza, but Epicure makes it better. First of all, I make my pizza sauce out of basic tomato sauce and Epicure's Pizza seasoning. I also sprinkle the pizza seasoning over the pizza before I bake it.

From Spicin it up with Julie

Soooo delicious! I make my own homemade dough generally, but because I was making a TONNE of pizza I went the easy way and used ready make shells. One day I will post my homemade dough though because it is delicious and uses Epicure seasonings ;) Pizza is always a huge hit in our house. I made 4 of these puppies!

From Spicin it up with Julie

Secondly I made a noodle/stir-fry dish. This is one of the fastest and easiest meals to make and makes me feel like I am eating out when I am eating in.

Cast of Characters for the marinade:

From Spicin it up with Julie

Add ins:

From Spicin it up with Julie

Here is what I did:

1 tsp about (I never measure exactly) of each of VE Oriental Stir Fry, Thai seasoning, Satay and Roasted Garlic
1 tbsp chicken bouillon (I use the knorr liquid one, only for some things, I also love the VE one, but it has its own spices in it and this one doesn't)
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp chili garlic sauce (this will give it substantial kick, omit or use less if you don't want spice)
1/2 cup of water
2 tbsp peanut oil (or oil of your choice)

I mixed this all together and added a couple chicken breasts and left it to marinade. I took out about 1/8 cup of the marinade for later and kept it aside without the chicken in it. Look at it all happy!

From Spicin it up with Julie

Then when it was time to cook, I boiled some water and sat my noodles in it for 10 minutes in a bowl beside me,
added the chicken and marinade to my VE wok and cooked the chicken till no longer pink. I removed the chicken to a bowl and added my veggies, and stirfried till tender crisp. I then added in my noodles and reserved marinade, and my almonds. Once this was all ready, I added in the chicken and heated through. It was delicious!

From Spicin it up with Julie

My 7 day Epicure Challenge!

I was inspired by a fellow Epicure Selections consultant recently. She is a brand new consultant, and lucky for me, she is also on my team! Anyway, her attitude and excitement over our products reminded me why I became an Epicure consultant in the first place- Because I love to prepare healthy, fun, delicious meals for my family that are easy to do and affordable!

So, in honor of her catching enthusiasm, I am launching my new blog where I can keep track of my Epicure recipes andto get it started I am pledging to use my Epicure SelectionsProducts in every meal I make this week. So, I might not post them all, or every day, but at the end of the next 7 days there will be at least 7 recipes or ideas for my customers to use their products! Then, I will just add more as I get the urge :)

Here is one for today:

This morning I wanted something decadent in the coffee department. Those of you who know me, know I live about a zillion miles from civilization (ok so 12 minutes, but when you don't have a license...)

So, I whipped myself up a Dark Chocolate Mexicoco Latte ala Epicure.

Here is the cast of characters:



Here is what I did:
I put 3/4 cup of milk in a microwave safe cup and heated it for about 1 and a half minutes
I put on some coffee to brew strong, about a cup (instant will work too, but make sure its fairly strong)
I put 1 1/2 tbsp of our dark hot chocolate in the bottom of my cup and added 1 tbsp boiling water to dissolve it. I then sprinkled about a tsp of sugar into the cup as well and stirred. I like my latte's sweet, but you could easily omit that.
Then I added half a cup of strongly brewed coffee, while I went ahead and frothed up my hot milk. I topped off the glass with the foamy warm milk of the God's and stirred and topped with our new Mexicoco sugar grinder.

Now...Let me tell you...
Move over Starbucks! And I will enjoy putting my five bucks back in my pocket!

YUM!