Photo Credit: Béatrice de Géa for The New York Times

It's a cold December day. Flurries fall from the sky and softly land atop the partially snow covered wind swept ground while Ina's weathered gray cedar shingle style home glows in the new morning light. Though it may be calm and cool outdoors, Ina's kitchen is warm and a flurry of activity. After all, she's got a dinner party planned for later in the evening and has only herself and a hodgepodge of helpful friends to pull it together. Can she do it? Of course she can, she's the Barefoot Contessa.

Our row house is far from a sprawling ocean-side cottage tucked among the luxe east end of Long Island, but there's no reason why we can't aspire to throw ourselves a little shindig that permits us to channel the best of Ina. In fact, we decided to plan and execute a little neighborhood holiday dinner party to experience first hand the exhausting level of effort necessary to scratch the surface of an Ina Garten inspired event.

Today, as an active observer, participant, and fan of my spouse's vast array of abilities, I'd like to share my experience surrounding this event. It's my hope you might be able to get some ideas from our party that you might be able to apply if you want to throw one of your own. Earlier this week Wendy shared how she pulled the tablescape and centerpiece together to set the main stage for this dinner. However, the lens of her content was limited when it came to the behind the scenes prep that took us from planning to party. 

As you're likely well aware, all too often when it comes to blogs, Pinterest, or television shows we all get to see the seemingly effortless execution and near perfect end result of wonderfully pulled together projects or events. But reality is far from the simplicity we all like to believe. After all, this simple fact is what has given birth to the wonders of the #PinterestFail. But back to our dinner party.

Truth be told, Wendy has a knack for planning, preparation, and execution when it comes to complex events. In fact, it goes well beyond a knack...it's a honed skill that impresses me every time I have an opportunity to bear witness. But one skill Wendy possesses that I completely lack an aptitude for is an understanding of how to accept help when help is offered. In this case, rather than trying to handle the entire meal ourselves, each set of guests was set to bring a course for the meal along with a whiskey to pair with their course. This meant we'd be able to focus on decorating the house, setting up the dinning room and side board, and preparing the main course, while others handled the starter, salad, and dessert. 

In any Barefoot Contessa prepared gathering, like a delicious meal, there's a recipe to it all. What I've learned is that with the right mix of desire, knowledge, and patience, the recipe is something that makes it possible for anyone to throw an Ina Garten style party. These critical components are:

1. The Theme
2. The Decor & Tablescape
3. The Menu
4. The Company

As a longtime fan of Ina's work, Wendy has studied hour upon hour of her shows. She studies the concepts behind her recipes, immerses herself in the myth of the prep, attempts to ignore the obvious wrinkle that it's TV with a crew, not just Ina at work alone, marvels at her ability to pull it all together, and at the same time scoffs at what seems to be an egregious amount of oil, butter, and salt that often find their way into the recipes. As a longtime partner to my Ina-obsessed spouse, I often find myself watching along while gently poking fun at the contrived for basic cable premise of it all (all the while understanding just how much I benefit from Wendy's fandom).

Our dinner party was our latest opportunity for Wendy to put the skills she's learned from the Food Network to test, and for me to enjoy the show as an active participant and co-host. So let's get down to brass tacks and discuss how we got this party started with the choice of a theme!

The Theme

While Ina often uses the celebration of a specific friend or guest's arrival (or our favorite, Jeffrey is coming home from the city), it was our goal to focus our celebration on the Christmas season coupled with Alexandria's Scottish Heritage. After all, earlier in the morning on the same day as our party Alexandria was celebrating the very same thing with the 75th annual Scottish Christmas Walk Parade. The town was already in a very Scottish Christmas mood, so we decided to call our celebration a Christmas Whisky tasting and dinner.

The goal of our party was to bring a few neighborhood friends together, eat some very delicious food, and sample a wide variety of whisky along the way. But when it comes down to it, you really don't need anything more than a good excuse to throw a party, and pretty much anything works. Maybe your florist friend Michael wants to drop by to decorate your home? Might as well throw a orange tulip themed party. Maybe in our case, one or more of our party attendees happen to be mildly obsessed with Outlander, several attendees happened to have kilts, and our city is celebrating Scottish heritage with a Christmas parade, so we might as well throw a Scottish inspired Christmas party. 

Photo Credit: dreamysim1.wordpress.com

No matter the excuse, extend it as a theme and you'll be able to tie your whole dinner party together off of this one common thread. You might have to get a little creative, but the creativity is ultimately what makes it fun.

The Decor and Tablescape

To properly embrace the extent to which Ina ensures her guests' sensory experience is properly guided, she doesn't just rely on her palette pleasing Cirque Du Soleil of drinks and dishes, but also executes in presentation that extends to far more than the prep of a delicious meal. The mood set by the location, table decor, place settings, and other embellishments associated with the event, which it is almost as important to the overall execution as the meal. For this reason you often see Ina out and about the day before or day of a party, shopping for that perfect bouquet of flowers or that ideal artisanal bread to augment the whimsically rustic look of the table.

Photo Credit: Williams Sonoma Taste

Since our dinner's Theme as a Scottish inspired whisky tasting event was to revolve around the Christmas holiday, all the while embracing the feeling of the blustery and rugged Scottish highlands, the decor of our home and dining room had to reflect this feeling. Wendy went into great detail on how we pulled off this complex look of tartan covered rustic sophistication on a budget, but the reality wasn't as simple as throwing up a Christmas tree, placing some flowers in water, and tossing our tablecloth on the dining room table. Oh no, the effort is full of trial and error with lots of questions of "does this look good to you?"

It all started a two days before our party when one or the other of us loudly exclaimed, "We're throwing a party in two days and we don't have a damn bit of Christmas decorations up in the house!" I believe the other's constructive retort went a little something like, "So should we go buy a tree?" In the life of the Barefoot Contessa, a bevy of stage hands and production assistants have likely already selected the perfect garland, had a tree shipped in from Vermont, and were madly turning her dwelling into a festive holiday abode. In our home we selected an questionably symmetrical tree of roughly the height we'd need, with as few dead needles and bald spots as we could bear, and we stood it up on the stand. 

Yes, you're right, your eyes do not deceive you, the tree was leaning farther than the tower of Pisa. But a teetering tree is far from a little speed bump worthy of derailing our plans. Rather than worry, we broke out the decorations, lights, ornaments, bubbly, and cheese and we made an evening of plumbing up the tree and covering it, and our home, in ornaments and decor. 

I'm serious about the bubbly and cheese. We're doing as Ina does, and anything worth doing, is worth doing with snacks.

When it came time to set up for the party, we did have to slide the tree about four feet into the other room in order to make room at our dining table for the people we were inviting to our party. It seems that once we place the leaf in our table, our tiny little house is not able to easily accommodate a table set for eight, our dining room furniture, and a large wonky Christmas tree. If I had to guess, I bet Ina doesn't have these sorts of problems.

When it came to dressing up our expanded table, we couldn't leave any wood exposed. Our table is a vintage piece we picked up from a Cleveland antique store about 13 years ago. The table top of the main table has been refinished, but the tables leaves are very much...unrefinished. The end result of our table covering was burlap and tartan, and it looked rather lovely. 

But this wasn't achieved without contemplative iterations. First we tried a white linen covering that was too small for the table with a tartan runner that was too large. That apparently didn't work.

Then we tried the idea of tartan over the whole table using two runners of different length. That too had its faults.

At this point, much to the delight of Lulu and Mel, who love laying on the burlap, we landed on the preferred approach. A burlap base with horizontal runners.

This equation of fabrics proved successful in concept, but possessed an excessive number of wrinkles. 

While Wendy went to shop for the needed ingredients, I was dispatched as linen ironer to resolve the issues of the wrinkled table cloth as well as the equally creased white linen napkins. 

The table itself begins to come together as layers of various weights and textures of tableware. Some items with a purpose within the meal, some purely decorative, all 100% and completely useful in the overall aesthetic. 

By the time our table was completely set, the sun had done the same, which only made us feel more pressure to get things into gear so we'd be ready when our guests arrived. But at the very least, our table had the look we were going for to set the scene for our event. How great is that?

It does make me wonder how many people sit in a room when blocking out an episode of the Barefoot Contessa to determine just how things will look when guests arrive, or if Ina just takes the bull by the horns and makes all of the decisions herself and everyone else executes based on her direction. Regardless, if there's one thing I've learned as a modern 21st century spouse of an entertaining maven, it's the absolute importance of nicely ironed and folder white linens napkins to set the mood for dinner.

The Menu

In Ina's world, her husband, Jeffrey, is often both the guest of honor at the party, and nowhere to be found in the home for prep. Occasionally you'll get a quick shot of him reading the Financial Times while on his way to the Hamptons from his busy job in the city. Meanwhile, Ina is able to fully coordinate a multi course meal all on her own. From watching the show, all I can say is "it's good to be Jeffrey!"

In the execution of Ina's parties I often wonder who else is helping? Just watching everything being taken out to the tables is overwhelming when considering one person may be doing the planning, prep, and cleanup. 

Our party, as I mentioned earlier, was made far more manageable by the simple fact that each set of guests had volunteered to bringing a dish and a whisky. This way we would each be able to focus on a single delicious course, rather than trying to coordinate and prepare four separate courses. 

Taking on more than you're capable of is a classic recipe for a dinner party disaster. I know my eyes are usually bigger than my stomach when it comes to what I would choose as a menu. The fault in my approach is that I don't think of the complexity of what we'd be preparing, only the enjoyment of eating. The end result of such a plan would be a lot of bored guests waiting for food that I'd be frantically preparing, and me serving everything either cold or overcooked. But Wendy knows better than me (way, way better). She began planning the main course as a three part dish that we could prepare ahead of time and would be able to simply stick in the oven to bake 20 - 30 minutes before it was needed.

For our main dish Wendy decided on Ina's garlic & herb roasted shrimp (from her book: " Make It Ahead: A Barefoot Contessa Cookbook") with sides of her goat cheese mashed potatoes and roasted broccolini. Wendy chose Ina recipes for both the shrimp dish and the mashed potatoes because, well, Ina has never steered us wrong. It seems like pretty much any recipe we've ever made of hers has been delicious.

The beauty of this planning is in the ability to pre-make the shrimp and set it aside while moving onto the mashed potatoes. But the difficulty of making the mashed potatoes is struggle while making it to keep yourself from eating all of it straight from the bowl while taste testing. I'm not even kidding, these potatoes are delicious!

The final piece to the main course was the ultra simple roasted broccolini. Just toss the broccoli with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roast it in the oven. How easy is that?

Before we get into the rest of the food, let's talk a little about the whisky lineup we assembled for this party. We dusted off our various bottles from our liquor cabinet, and the guests each brought a favorite bottle of their own. The end result was a wide array of whisky flavor personalities. The mix consisted largely of Scottish single malts, but we even had a delicious French whisky to try. The key here was to have an understanding of which whisky was softer, and which was a bit more aggressive or smoky on taste, so that we could pair their tasting with the food we'd be eating. And what I mean by that, as a bunch of whisky novices, we pretty much read the bottle labels and did a little Googling to figure out what went where. 

We also had a small dish of candied ginger on hand. If you're doing a whisky tasting, and there are people at your table that don't particularly enjoy particularly smoky or heavily peated Scotch, chewing on a piece of candied ginger will balance the flavors. Like pairing food with wine, the flavor balance of the ginger will turn a harsh tasting whisky into something many people will really enjoy.  

Amuse Bouche

We began the meal with a small starter course Wendy put together much earlier in the day. She filled several tall shot glasses with some really good homemade warm roasted red pepper soup. Serving soup shooters pre-meal is one of those very quick things you can do that will really fancy up a meal. 

We paired a starter shot of Thistly Cross cider with these red pepper shooters. Thistly Cross is a cider that we came to truly enjoy in Scotland, and they have a flavor that's finished in whisky casks. As a result, you have a tasty cider with a hint of whisky. This can be a great option for those at the table that aren't necessarily whisky fans and prefer something a little sweeter.

Starter

The couple who brought the first course chose an amazing combination of three seafood items. The first two were a baked oyster served on the half shelf paired with a small piece of salmon atop a lightly toasted quarter of brioche bread, topped with a bit of crème fraîche and a chive.

The baked oyster tasted almost like a single delicious bite of oyster chowder. And the presentation of the starter was very nice given that it was served on the shell, but this is another easy thing you can do to add some interest if you're serving baked oysters. The shells are completely reusable, you just need to find a handful of oyster shells that are large enough and have the look you want. Once you use them you can wash and dry them like any other dish, then put them away for the next time you want to use it. How easy is that?!

A starter of crab bisque was also served as a secondary starter dish, and it too was delicious. All of these starters were paired with a very soft French whisky that had been made in sherry casks. 

In order to taste the whisky we placed small tasting glasses at each place setting which would allow sufficient tastes of each pour without the tendency to pour too much into larger glasses.

Salad

The salad course represented a refreshing and wonderfully prepared dish. I personally love a good salad, and this hit all of the marks perfectly. The salad consisted of mixed greens, diced pears, and gorgonzola cheese. It was topped with homemade candied walnuts and dressed with a homemade aged balsamic vinaigrette. All of the balances between the sweet and acidic elements were perfect and I could honestly eat this salad at pretty much every meal and always be happy.

With the salad course we paired The Dalmore 12 year whisky, which is aged in several different casks, including bourbon and sherry. Again, this is a much softer whisky that tends to be a crowd pleaser. The beauty of this pairing was also how well it worked with the tastes of the salad. 

Main Course

While we went into detail on what ultimately made up the main course above, the finished presentation was colorful, balanced, and very tasty. The overall dish was complemented by a large slice of crusty pugliese bread perfect for gathering up any of the remaining mashed potatoes your fork isn't able to retrieve.

While some of the whiskies were delightful to try, the reaction to others, especially those of the heavily peated variety were, um, more unexpected than others. For the main course we paired several different bottles of Scotch, but all were getting slightly more smokey and peated. As I mentioned before, pairing the candied ginger certainly helps reduce the number of times you see this face while doing a whisky tasting.

Dessert

For dessert one of the guests brought her famous coconut cake and a bottle of their absolute favorite Scotch that they discovered on a 100 mile backpacking trip in the highlands of Scotland. As part of our themed whisky tasting party, each person was also responsible for telling the group a little bit about each whisky we were tasting. In this case, the story about the Glengoyne whisky and distillery allowed the tellers to not only provide information about the taste, but to also share some of what made their vacation particularly amazing.

From start to finish the menu of our Ina inspired dinner party was equal parts delicious, elegant, beautiful, and enjoyable. And even though we were only cooking the main dish ourselves, it was a substantial amount of effort. I simply can't imagine trying to handle the prep of everything for an entire dinner party and trying to enjoy the meal at the same time. 

The Company

When watching the Barefoot Contessa, you may be be watching for the food, but ultimately you're going to see the fun. Whether it's welcoming Jeffrey back from the city after he's likely subsisted the final two days of his Manhattan seclusion huddled over whisky and snack sized bags of Cheetos, or celebrating the arrival of some of her friends who are in town for a few days, Ina's parties are full of happy and hungry people. 

Photo Credit: Orange Coast Magazine

For our party the decorations were festive, the theme inspiring, and the meal was delicious, but the star of the party was getting to spend a few hours with great friends and neighbors to celebrate the occasion. When life is full of projects and work it's a little too easy to forget just why you're working quite so hard. Ultimately, a little time spent chatting over some beautifully prepared food is a great reminder that the effort is only worth it if you take some time to enjoy. We hope our guests had a good time, and we know we had a wonderful time hosting the party. I think it's at least somewhat evident that by the end of the night there was conversation going on planning out who would be hosting the next gathering. It is clear to me why the Barefoot Contessa is such a successful and long running show. There may be plenty to poke fun at, but ultimately Ina Garten is planning, preparing, and throwing parties that bring people together and allow them to have a wonderful time with each other. 

Another thing we can tell you for absolutely sure. It's probably pretty exhausting being Ina Garten. While her shows may have a lot of help from a vast staff that works on it with her, Ina was able to create this show due to years of executing similar parties on her own. We had, and we believe our guests had, an absolutely wonderful time celebrating Alexandria's heritage, enjoying some delicious food, reveling in the company and conversation of friends, and sipping a wide variety of whisky. 

While trying to throw a Barefoot Contessa style party may involve a whole lot more than meets the eye when you're comparing it to what you're watching on her show, it's absolutely a lot of fun and something worth doing with friends (especially when they offer to bring some of the dishes). But if there's one thing that makes this recipe complete, it's the addition of a whole lot of fun and enjoyment that can be had by all involved. You'll all be able to raise a glass and exclaim, "How easy is that!!" 

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Yes, poor guy was so stressed there was drool hanging out of his mouth.

Our little old man, Mel, decided to jump onto the arm of our family room chair. Somehow, the spry little fellow lost his grip and ended up falling backwards onto the hardwood floor. I heard the thud and then the little guy started hissing at anything and everything around him. To make a long story short, after vet visits and analysis our Scottish Fold has what appears to be a strained Achilles or partial tear of the feline equivalent of an ACL...on both knees.

The good news is that he's gained one pound since earlier this year, so our efforts to fatten the skinny old man up have been working out. After some pain meds he's doing much better now, but we need to keep him from jumping and climbing stairs for a few weeks...yes...a cat...that we need to keep from jumping...good luck, eh!

By the end of the weekend we were beginning to return to normal (though a week of vet visits undoubtedly lies ahead), working on some house projects and preparing meals for the week and for dinner.

Though I'm admittedly not the superior cook in our family, I pride myself on my ability to truly hold my own when it comes to food prep. Sure, Wendy has me beat hands down with her delicious, wonderfully executed, and creative meals she always prepares, there's no debating that, but I don't want to give the impression that I'm some do-nothing lazy slouch of a spouse who doesn't know his way around the kitchen, always relying on the talents of my wife, lest I'd starve to death.

I have a handful of dishes I'm rather good at (like homemade gnocchi, chicken marsala, and creative pizzas), and also possess an adequate ability to follow complex recipes. Hey, I've even been known to whip up multiple batches of chocolate chip cookies from memory. I'm obsessed with the dough.

As much as I feel comfortable in the kitchen, I'm always looking for tips, tricks, and healthy choices that I can use to further round out my cooking prowess. Now that I'm a pescatarian and my staple of chicken marsala does me little good anymore, I figured it's high time to add a fish dish replacement to my repertoire.

Last year Wendy and I attended a "cooking class" at Chef Cornell Coulon's catering company. I used quotation marks to describe the class, because it was more of Chef Coulon cooking for us while we learned what he was doing, rather than really cooking for ourselves. Trust me, I think we definitely were the winners of this class configuration.

Throughout the evening Chef Coulon made a salmon with veggies dish in a mushroom buerre blanc sauce.

The main course was followed by a pear tarte tatin prepared to perfection. 

The whole event was delicious and enlightening. It showed us just how easy it is to make some absolutely delicious food without a ton of ingredients or time. But it also confirmed just how rich and heavy restaurant food prep is (butter, oil, and heavy cream in volumes that could make Paula Deen and Ina Garten blush).

My takeaway from the event, beyond the lasting memory of a delicious meal, was the newfound knowledge of how to properly prepare salmon. This alone was easily worth the cost of the class.

I've previously been rather intimidated by cooking fish on my own, always ending up with a meal that's over cooked, under flavored, and filed in the "yeah, we should probably not make this again," recipe memory banks. As it turns out, I was doing essentially everything wrong, ranging from the purchase of the salmon itself to the way I was cooking it, and apparently everything in between.

So today I'd like to share with you a little something about how to prepare the perfect pan seared salmon, and hopefully this lesson will convert you as it converted me.

The first step is actually one of the absolute most important steps that will determine the outcome of your dish well before you even set foot in your kitchen, and it's actually fairly simple.

BUY FRESH SALMON!

I'm not trying to sound like pretentious Ina Garten saying to use "really good butter" or "really good mayonnaise." I'm just saying that where and when you buy your fish matters as much as how you prepare it.

In our area we're quite lucky to have several locations where we can purchase high quality and very fresh seafood. One option that many people have access to is Whole Foods. Whole Foods stocks high quality fresh fish in a variety of types, but the prices can be, well, a little Whole Food$yish.

Though Whole Foods is adequate for us, we have another option that is often of much better quality and is a fraction of the price. In talking about local Korean grocery store chain, H Mart.

H Mart has a few local locations and gets their fish shipments on Tuesday, so it's best to go either Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday. And if you've ever been searching for some of the more random types of seafood, there's a good chance H Mart has what you're looking for.

When we get salmon we also ask the guys behind the fish counter to remove the skin for us. We prefer cooking with the skin off, but removing it yourself without an extremely sharp knife can be a pain that ends up in a mess and with a lot of lost salmon.

Once you have your fish in hand the rest of the process is surprisingly straight forward and comes together quickly.

First you need to cut your salmon into pieces that maintain roughly the same thickness throughout. Salmon cooks uniformly, so thin areas will over cook before the thicker areas are ready to go.

With the salmon filets in ready cut pieces it's time to pre-season them. To do this simply mix up three parts salt to one part black pepper in a small container. I like to use fresh crushed sea salt and fresh black pepper, but just about anything will do.

Using your fingers pinch and sprinkle the salt/pepper mixture over both sides of each piece of the salmon. Don't be shy here, this is the only seasoning we're doing, and it helps to give your salmon that good salty sear.

Your salmon is pretty much ready to go, so it's time to grab your pan. You can use pretty much any pan, but a pan without any sort of Teflon coating (like an all clad pan) actually works best. We only have a non-stick pan, so that's what we use, but I'm pretty sure we're going to be looking at something new soon (so if you have any recommendations we'd love to hear them).

Drizzle a tablespoon or two of olive oil just to coat the bottom of your pan and turn the stove up to medium-high heat. Olive oil doesn't have a particularly high smoke point, so be sure not to overheat the oil, but at the same time, the oil needs to be quite hot to give you that golden sear.

Now here is the very important part in this whole process. Pick up your salmon and place it directly down in the oil within your pan. That's it, don't touch it, don't move it, don't taunt it, just leave it once you place it. As soon as you place the fish it begins cooking and sticks itself to the pan. If you try to move the fish before it's cooked it will tear the bottom right off, leaving it in the pan, and ruining your salmon.

So leave your salmon in place and cooking for about 5 or so minutes. Salmon has a built in thermometer that lets you see how it's been cooking. Just look at the side of the salmon and you'll see the side in contact with the pan turning white, and the red in the middle slowly turning pink.

After about 5 minutes of cooking begin to nudge the side of the salmon with a pair of tongs to see if it will move in the pan. Don't push too hard, but push to see of it's freed from the pan yet. The salmon will release itself from the pan once it's fully cooked. This little tip was a mind blowing experience for me.

For the next step you have two options. If you're like us and want that good golden sear on both sides and your salmon is thick enough (about 1" minimum), just flip the salmon in the pan and repeat the steps on the other side.

But if your salmon is thinner, extremely thick, or you just want one side crispy, flip the salmon and place it on an aluminum foil lined cookie sheet, seared side up, and put it in the oven at 350 degrees.

In the oven the remainder of the uncooked salmon will be baked to perfection in about 5-10 minutes. Use that built in thermometer I mentioned earlier to see when it's ready to come our of the oven.

When it comes to serving the salmon we like to serve it over rice, couscous, pasta, or even sautéed greens (collards or bok choy work really well) type of bed. Whether we're using couscous, noodles, quinoa, or rice, a simple sauce (white wine or spicy tai chili perhaps) goes a long way to bring out the flavors of the fish's crispy and salty exterior and flaky juicy interior.

For us this has become one of those staple meals we've been preparing this summer. It's fast, easy, delicious, and quite healthy. Best of all, I don't end up feeling like a loser husband that wouldn't be able to feed myself if my wife wasn't around, and it's fancy enough to double as a showstopper when entertaining.

Do you have any staple recipes in your repertoire that you like to turn to for a healthy, delicious, and quick homemade meal? And do you have any local stores where you can buy good quality fresh fish? I know it can be hit or miss depending on where you live.

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I love this recipe for several reasons: it's pretty quick, pretty easy, very healthy, and makes ten servings, providing us with several days worth of healthy meals for the coming week. With butternut squash becoming more difficult to find this time of year, I knew I wanted to get one more run in before it's replaced by summer's produce selection. In our house, we're pretty much addicted to butternut squash, and haven't yet had our fill.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 tbsp. fresh ginger root
• 1 medium uncooked leek
• 4 oz. frozen apple juice concentrate
• 3 lbs. fresh butternut squash
• 3 large green apples
• 4 cups vegetable broth
• 1/2 cup fat free half and half
• Salt
• Pepper

Directions

I like to start by placing my large soup pot (a Christmas gift from my in-laws that I'm just loving!) on a cold stove with no heat, assembling my ingredients on the counter, and arranging my fresh items on a large cutting board. This allows me to get completely organized without feeling rushed or frantic during the actual prep process.

To start, one of the most important steps in the overall success of the recipe is easily the simplest. Thoroughly rinse or soak the leek in water to remove the grit. This is a step you'll want to take your time with, as leeks are like magicians. Just when you think they're clean, you'll find they have a little something hidden up their sleeve. 

Once clean, discard the upper green section and chop the lower white end. Chop the leeks into small sections and toss the them into your pot.

Next up, trim a section of fresh ginger to remove the tough outer skin. Using a microplaner or grater, grate 1 1/2 tablespoons of the ginger directly into the pot. You can use the ginger in a tube if you're looking to save time, but make sure the ginger is fresh.

Next, add 4 ounces of frozen apple juice concentrate to the leek and ginger, turning on the heat to medium. 

Bring the mixture to a simmer, and allow the contents to cook, covered, for 10 minutes or until the leeks are tender.

While the leeks cook, I get to work on chopping. Start by peeling and coring the apples, slicing each into approximately 8 equal sized slices. (If you have a friendly K-9 helper nearby, don't forget to save some apple for them.) 

Next up, peel and cube the butternut squash into chunks. Since we're at the tail end of butternut squash season, all I could find at the store this weekend was the already peeled and cubed squash. It made this recipe much easier, but foretells the end of the season and is a lot more expensive to buy it this way. Once the leeks are tender, add the apples and squash to the pot.

Cover the contents of the pot with approximately one cup of the vegetable broth. 

With the heat set to medium/medium-low, cover and allow the combination to simmer for one hour. This will give you plenty of time to clean up, or perhaps drink a cup of coffee and read the newspaper while your spouse does the dishes. 

Once the squash is very tender, puree the mixture using a handheld immersion blender or by pureeing the soup in small batches in a blender or food processor. Personally, I feel the immersion blender is one of the best kitchen tools I own. I find it's a huge time saver that allows me to completely puree anything in the pot rather than having to transfer batches to the blender, wash the blender, and scrub down my kitchen cabinets after exploding said mixture in the blender multiple times.

The final step is to add 1/2 half cup fat free half and half to the pureed mixture. The half and half lends a indulgent velvet texture to the soup, without the fat of butter or heavy cream. Paula Deen may not agree, but I promise you won't miss notice the substitution!

Season the soup with 1/2 teaspoon salt and pepper (or to taste).

And give the soup one final "zap" with the immersion blender to ensure a creamy, even texture.

Now all you have to do is ladle out a bowl of this sweet and gingery soup to enjoy the fruits (and veggies) of your labor.

Since this recipe makes ten servings, I like to pre-portion out each serving in individual storage containers. As we run out the door each morning to get to work, lunch is already packed and practically ready to go. 

So there you have it -- one of our favorite soup recipes and my trick to making healthy weekday meals a snap. Do you have a go-to cold weather recipe? Maybe a tip on packing easy lunches or assembling make-ahead dinners? With time at a premium, I'm always interested to learn new ways to make the work week just a bit less hectic.

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In recent years I've begun flexing my confectionery muscles in celebration of commemorative events. Most notably, these events are the birthdays of our friends, but I've also baked for baby showers, wedding showers, house warming parties, and St. Patty's Day celebrations.

Of late, I've made a habit of asking friends with upcoming birthdays what their absolute favorite kind of cake happens to be. After they answer, I ask if they'd mind too greatly if I went ahead and made that cake or cupcakes in their favorite flavor and style for them as a special birthday treat. The typical answer is, "Are you kidding? I'd love it if you baked me a cake." Tough crowd, eh?

Last weekend we celebrated the birthdays of two of our close friends and I gladly volunteered my cupcake skills. Coincidentally, both of them requested red velvet cake, but one request was a bit of a departure from the normal red velvet you might think of. But more on that in a minute.

A bit of a warning. Alex just got a new 50mm lens for the camera, and the day we made these cupcakes was the very first day he was using the lens. So his, and my, apologies if you are annoyed by the excessive "bokeh" (quality blur) in the shots and the questionable lighting/exposure. We're trying to learn as we go.

With this particular request, I set out making a standard red velvet cake batter, and as is my typical style, used my trusty ice cream scoop to properly portion each cupcake.

Beyond this aspect of portioning, baking the red velvet is pretty straightforward process if you follow the recipe or box's directions.

The key to these "special" request cupcakes was actually in the icing. One of our friends has fond childhood memories of enjoying red velvet cake with peppermint cream cheese frosting, a seasonal and favorite cake on her December birthday. When I first heard this I wasn't sure if it meant modification of the cake batter or of the frosting. After checking with the authority on the matter (the birthday girl), we determined only the icing had to be altered.

I purchased a two boxes of candy canes for the task and ended up using all of the candy canes in the process.

After removing the candy canes from their packaging I placed them all into a sandwich bag and retrieved my rolling ping. My goal was to break the candy canes into smaller pieces than the whole or half canes they currently were.

After a few smacks, it seemed to be working, but it also poked a few holes in the bag and started making a mess. Rather than continue making a mess and spreading candy cane dust all over the counter, I emptied the bag of cane pieces into the food processor.

A few pulses later the candy canes were a mixture of fine peppermint sugar powder and smallish sized pieces.

If you ever do this, be aware that the candy cane dust will be coming out of the food processor like smoke. It might be best to wait for a moment or two before removing the top just to let the dust settle a bit, but don't worry, you're food processor probably isn't actually on fire.

Once the candy canes were all chopped up, I then used a mid sized wire basket to further sift the fine particles from the bigger pieces.

This process provided me a very fine powder to use in the frosting, and the larger chunks to use as decoration. I love it when a baking plan comes together!

I poured the finest powder and pieces into the mixing bowl and then scooped the cream cheese frosting into the bowl so that I could mix the whole thing together.

After mixing the peppermint powder and small pieces with the frosting, the normally white cream cheese frosting became a slightly rough textured pink color. This told me the frosting had taken on the peppermint flavor nicely, while still retaining some of the crunchy grittyness from the canes. This was just the effect I was trying to achieve.

I filled the peppermint frosting into an icing bag with my favorite decorating tip...

...and began piping the frosting onto the cooled cupcakes.

It wasn't the easiest icing job I've ever had. The peppermint weighed down the normally fluffy icing and made it a bit harder to create a spiral peak. If I had it to do over again, I'd also use a rounded tip. The jagged edge of the tip I used didn't work well with the bits of candy, and resulted in a less than crisp frosting effect. Luckily, my friends tend not to care about this detail as much as I do.

After working through the first few experimental cupcakes, I started to get the hang of the heavier icing. 

Once all of the cupcakes were iced, I then used the larger chunks of the peppermint candy and sprinkled them on the top of the frosting as additional garnish.

In all, the whole process was slightly more involved than simple cupcakes and frosting, but by no means was it particularly difficult. The end result was delicious, pretty, and perfectly festive baked treats for the holiday season.

If you like red velvet, peppermint, and cupcakes (who doesn't like cupcakes?), this is a recipe you need to try.

In case you're wondering if this creation was a hit, the verdict from the birthday girl was a favorable one. In fact she said, "These are exactly how I remember them tasting before my mom told me they were too difficult and she was going to stop making them!" I think we have a winner, folks.

Do you have a creative spin on a classic recipes? Does this sound like the type of thing you'd like, or are you more of a traditionalist when it comes to your baked goods? I love to hear other people's take on my baking attempts, even if you can't taste them through the screen. 

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Due to the fact that I admittedly rely on Wendy for most things culinary, it's with great excitement that I would like to share a little gastro delight of my own with you. Since I don't eat land meat anymore (just water meat), and we pretty much cook only vegetarian dishes at home, I'm always keeping my eyes open for an idea or two that can offer up fresh and very veggie options for meals. I get especially enthused when the recipe is one that doesn't take a particularly large amount of prep time or kitchen skills. And that's exactly what today's salad is all about. Fresh, healthy, quick, easy. As a simple meal challenged boy you just can't beat those stats.

To begin the black bean, corn, and avocado salad, you'll need to head out to the store for the various fresh ingredients.

Ingredients

Salad

• 2 avocados
• 2 cups sweet corn
• 2 15 oz. cans black beans
• 3 heads of Romaine lettuce
• 16 oz grape tomatoes (heirloom if desired)

Dressing

• 1/4 cup lime juice
• 1 minced garlic clove
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 1 teaspoon salt (sea salt)
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 tablespoons fresh chopped cilantro
• 1/4 extra virgin olive oil

Directions

Assembly of this salad is super easy, but make sure your avocados are fully ripe.

Start by chopping the romaine into bite sized pieces. I'm a bit of a lame cook, so I used our good kitchen scissors for this step. I find this lets me cut the lettuce right into the large serving bowl. If you're using a knife, just take the (extra) step and transfer the romaine to your large serving bowl. (Ok, so I took a photo of myself using the knife so you all wouldn't think I was lame, then I decided to come clean about my scissor usage, which I think actually makes me more lame. What's even more lame is that I'm left handed, and I was using the knife with my right hand. Hopeless.)

In another large bowl, begin combining the rest of the vegetables and legumes. Start by draining and rinsing the black beans.

I'm fairly neurotic about bean grit, so I tend to rinse beans for quite some time to get them all clean. Once adequately rinsed, add them to the bowl.

Next, cut your grape tomatoes in half and add them to the large bowl. We've used both regular grape tomatoes, as well as heirloom tomatoes. I like the flavor of the heirloom tomatoes better, but the look of the red tomatoes an the end result is far more appealing in my book.

For the corn, you can use either frozen or fresh sweet corn kernels, but either way make sure they are completely thawed and drained. I also used fire roasted corn when I made this dish, but I think I prefer just the sweet corn. No matter what you're using, add the corn to your large bowl.

Go ahead and mix all of these ingredients in the bowl so the next step will be a bit easier.

Finally, cut your avocado and remove the pit so that you can cube it. I remove the pit by cutting into it slightly with the knife and then sort of twisting it out. If it's ripe enough, it will come out rather easily, otherwise you have a bit of a mess on your hands.

The is the part where the ripeness of the avocado really matters. Too ripe and it will just mush, too hard and you won't be able to get it out of its jacket. You have to Goldilocks this fruit. (It's a fruit, right? Seeds on the inside?) If you've never worked with avocado before, after slicing horizontally, I typically use a spoon and slide it between the edge of the skin and the inside. A nicely ripe avocado will help you slide the spoon around and the inside will more or less pop (or slide) out for you.

Once the inside is out, just use a large knife to slice in the other direction to create your cubed avocado. Too easy.

Add your avocado to your large bowl and gently mix, trying not to damage and smash your avocado cubes. This is why you mixed the veggies in the previous steps, now you only need to mix in the one ingredient, not all of them.

Next, we'll create the dressing. Since we're making a vinaigrette we'll need to combine everything in a specific order. There's some sort of scientific explanation behind that order that involve emulsification. I won't pretend to know exactly what happens, but I do know that it tastes much better if you do it right.

First, add your garlic, mustard (we used a lime and jalapeño mustard we picked up on vacation), salt, sugar, pepper, and cilantro to a glass container. This is the base of the dressing.

Then, cut your limes in half and measure out the juice. Once ready to go, pour them into the container with the base ingredients and which them gently together.

And finally, slowly pour your oil into your lime and mustardy base, whisking as you pour.

The whisking action is what creates the vinaigrette through the reaction between your oil and acid (the lime infused mustard base). If you don't whisk while you pour, your oil and mustard/lime base will separate, which will result in a decidedly lackluster dressing.

Using some of your vinaigrette (~3 tablespoons) coat your vegetable mix by gently stirring in the dressing. Then combine the vegetable mix with the hearts of romaine that you prepared in the very first step.

Plate your wonderfully colorful salad and add dressing to taste. You've got a satisfying dish that can be either a side salad or a light and healthy entree.

In all, this probably only takes 15-20 minutes to prepare, and it's very easy prep. One serving tip: if you're not going to eat the whole salad in one sitting, everything keeps really well in the fridge except for the avocado. So just prepare the salad without the avocado and dressing and cut up just enough avocado cubes to mix in with the quantity you area serving.

Not too bad for a quick and easy meal, eh? Do you have any standbys or quick prep meals that are you're "go to" when your culinary partner wants a night off? We'd love to hear about them.

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