Braised in beer, chicken thighs are flavorful and tender.

I wish stews were prettier. I don’t think they’d win a popularity contest for top of mind dinners either, but if they were nicer to look at that might help the cause.

They are super satisfying on a cold winter night so it was a no-brainer when my friend Billy, who owns Port City Brewing Company, needed a recipe for a winter dish that used one of his brews, Optimal Wit.

Rather than take the red meat route, I chose chicken thighs, which are flavorful and cook faster than most meats. Then I added some dried ancho chile powder and roasted green chiles. The result: a perfect winter dish even if the weather is mild.

Chile-Infused Chicken Stew

Chicken thighs are the perfect meat for stew. Not as heavy as beef or lamb, but robustly flavorful and they cook quicker too. This chicken stew was made to be matched with Port City Brewing Company’s Optimal Wit, a brew that is crisp and aromatic, with complex citrus and spice flavors that evolve in the glass. Add a loaf of crusty French bread or warm tortillas and you’ve got a hearty meal for a winter’s night.

6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 tablespoon ground ancho chile powder
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
4 tablespoons olive oil
1/3 pound chorizo sausage
1 small red bell pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 small yellow onion, cut into 1-inch pieces
4 large red potatoes, skin on and cut into 8 pieces each
4 small carrots, cut into 1-inch pieces
One 3.5-ounce can roasted and diced green chiles
2 teaspoons dried oregano
One 12-ounce bottle Optimal Wit
1 cup chicken stock
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

Rinse the chicken with cold water and pat dry. Remove any excess fat. Cut into 2-inch pieces and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the ancho chile powder, salt and paprika. Add the chicken and toss to coat evenly.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a large stock pot over medium-high. Add the chicken and cook until browned on all sides, stirring as needed, for about 5 minutes.

Transfer the chicken back to the bowl.

Add the chorizo to the pot and cook until browned, about 3 minutes, breaking it into small pieces as it cooks. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil and the bell pepper and onion. Cook until the onion is translucent, about 4 minutes, stirring to prevent burning.

Add the potatoes, carrots, chiles, oregano, beer and stock. Bring to a boil. Cover and cook for 1 hour. Remove the lid, increase the heat to medium and cook for 30 minutes until the liquid begins to thicken and the chicken is tender. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve warm.

Perfect for a snack or a crunchy addition to a salad or soup.

It’s National Almond Day. And we are celebrating with a giveaway of Kate Washington’s upcoming “Almonds in the Savory Kitchen,” an ecookbook devoted to this super food.

This recipe, included in Kate’s book, makes the best roasted almonds you’ll ever eat. Once you try these, you will never want to eat an almond roasted any other way. They are that delicious.

To get a copy of Kate’s book, join the Hang Time Press mailing list between now and February 29 and we’ll send you a free copy when the books is released March 5.

Slow-Roasted Salted Almonds

Roasted salted almonds are widely available in stores, of course—but the advantages of making your own are many. First, they’ll taste fresher and more delicious; second, you can use the kind of salt you prefer (I like flaky Maldon sea salt); and third, you can control just how deeply roasted you like them. Slow roasting in a low oven for a long time gives the almonds a deep flavor and even color, and prevents them from splitting.

Time: 1 hour
Makes: 2 cups

2 cups (about 12 ounces) whole raw almonds
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon sea salt to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 250ºF.

2. Spread the almonds on a rimmed baking sheet and drizzle the oil over them. Toss to coat.

3. Bake, stirring or shaking the pan occasionally, until the nuts smell toasty and are browned to your liking, 45 minutes to 1 hour. Sprinkle with the salt and let cool before serving. Keep in a sealed container for up to one week.

What to drink: A spanish white, such as an Albarino or Vino Verde will be just right for a pre-dinner snack and glass of wine.

Not the prettiest dish ever, but one of the most delicious!

Moussaka. Not a word that exactly rolls off your tongue easily. But, oh boy is this moussaka delicious–I mean really, really delicious.

We had dinner with friends on Saturday, Michael and Tara, who cooked some spectacular Turkish food, including a moussaka with potatoes layered between the meat rather than eggplant.

It was super tasty and paired so well with the Napa Cabs that were opened I couldn’t resist making my own version on Sunday. This is the result. Try it—unless you grew up eating Moussaka your mother made from a recipe passed down from her Greek grandmother…

Moussaka

Anything cooked in a casserole dish is worthy of a Sunday dinner or a crowd, and this Moussaka is no exception. The rich combination of flavorful lamb, creamy potatoes and slightly tangy sauce however is not your ordinary casserole and the breadcrumbs on top take it to another dimension. No crowd? No worry. This dish tastes better the next day, so whether you have leftovers or need a make-ahead dish, this Moussaka is perfect for those occasions.

What to drink: We were lucky to enjoy a bottle of Sequoia Grove Cabernet Franc with this dish. It was like a little smorgasbord of robust and hearty flavors on a Sunday night.

Serves 4 to 6

4 cups milk
3 medium (about 1 1/2 pounds total) potatoes
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound ground lamb
1 yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 cup canned ground or crushed tomatoes
1/2 chicken stock or red wine
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon ground Aleppo or cayenne pepper
2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
4 ounces goat cheese
1/2 cup high-quality bread crumbs

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Pour the milk into a large saucepan.

Peel the potatoes. Use a mandolin or vegetable peeler to cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Add the potatoes to the pot of milk as you cut them.

When all of the potatoes are sliced, push down into the milk and bring the milk to a boil on low heat. Remove from the heat and drain over a bowl to reserve the milk. Rinse out the pan.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium heat in a large skillet. Add the lamb, onion and garlic. Cook until the onion is tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes and increase the heat a little to medium-high. Cook until nearly dry, about 5 minutes. Add the stock, bring to a boil and cook for 3 minutes. Stir in the oregano, parsley, Aleppo pepper and half of the salt and half of the pepper. Set aside.

Melt the butter in the saucepan from the potatoes. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute. Add the reserved and remaining milk. Cook over medium-low heat until it begins to thicken, about 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Stir in the goat cheese and remove from the heat. Stir in the other half of the salt and pepper.

Spread the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil in the bottom of a casserole dish (about 13X9X2-inch). Arrange one-third of the potatoes over the oil, starting in the center and overlapping the potatoes just slightly in a circle until the entire bottom of the baking sheet is covered with a single layer. Spread one-third of the meat mixture over the potatoes. Spoon one-third of the béchamel over the meat. Repeat the layers twice.

Melt the remaining 1 tablespoon butter in a small skillet over medium heat. Add the breadcrumbs and cook until lightly toasted, about 2 minutes. Sprinkle over the top of the casserole and bake until the potatoes are tender, 60-70 minutes. Let sit for 10 to 15 minutes to set. Serve warm.

In fall, the minute the temperatures begin to drop I begin to think about Brussels sprouts. Now I know a lot of people have an aversion to the little cabbage-like vegetables, but I’m a big fan.

I do have some criteria though, including never eating one until there’s been at least one hard frost to ensure they’ve been exposed to the cold that converts the starch to sugar. And, also roasting is paramount to caramelize those sugars.

Around here, we eat them after they’ve been roasted at a high temp, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt.

At Cook in St. Helena, they are roasted, sautéed in butter and topped with parmesan. To say they are delicious is to say cream has a little fat—a big understatement.

So, last weekend I set out to recreate Cook’s version at home. I didn’t use as much butter, but they were pretty darn good.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts a la Cook

Serves 4

1 pound Brussels sprouts, halved
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup shredded parmesan

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Put the Brussels sprouts in a large bowl, add the olive oil, salt and pepper. Stir to coat the B sprouts evenly. Pour into a baking dish large enough to hold the B sprouts in an almost single layer but not so big that they are spread out. The more condensed space will help steam the B sprouts without browning them. Bake until tender 20-30 minutes depending on the size. (I like to use smaller B sprouts, about the size of ping pong ball.)

Turn on the broiler.

Melt the butter in a large oven-proof skillet over medium-high heat. When it begins to bubble and turn brown around the edges, add the B sprouts and cook, stirring to coat evenly until the B sprouts begin to brown slightly, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle with the cheese, put under the broiler to melt, about 1 minutes and serve.

Spinach, almonds and dried apricots make a tasty trio -- perfect for keeping the resolution to eat healthier.

2012 is here and it’s a big one. I have a milestone birthday at the end of it and have begun a bucket list of new things to try and places to go.

While I didn’t make any real resolutions, I have a couple of goals for improving myself. Not things I can work on at the gym per se, but ways that I want to be happier about myself.

But of course if I could “move” around a few pounds that would make me happy too. One of the ways I hope to do that is with an item on my list: learning to skateboard.

Another is to continue a trend we started last year, which involved eating less meat, more veggies and a lot more beans on our plates. And, nuts became a much more common ingredient in our meals and as a snack.

Lucky for me, our first book of 2012 is “Almonds in the Savory Kitchen,” by Kate Washington. It is a collection of 10 tasty and pretty healthy recipes that all include almonds as a main ingredient.

I photographed it, which required cooking all of the recipes. It was like a mini-cooking class. Kate’s recipes were thorough and easy to follow, but there were several dishes I hadn’t made before.

When I read the headnote for the spinach recipe below, I thought Kate’s note was a lot of hype. And then I tried the spinach. I couldn’t stop eating it and quickly began to call it by a different name, Crack.

If you made a resolution to eat healthier this recipe will help you stay on track. Otherwise it’s just a totally delicious plate of spinach you’ll have trouble putting down after the first bite.

We’ll launch Kate’s book mid-month. If you’d like to win a free copy, sign up for our mailing list here.

Catalan Spinach with Slivered Almonds and Dried Apricots

This flavorful Spanish dish of sautéed spinach is great as part of a tapas spread or as a side dish for fish or paprika-dusted roasted chicken. That said I’ve been known to eat a whole batch of this spinach for dinner when there’s not much else in the house. It’s quick, savory and healthy.

What to drink: Albariño. This racy white wine variety from Spain offers fresh fruity flavors and enough zing to counterbalance the richness of the spinach and almonds.

Time: 10 minutes
Makes: 2 to 4 side-dish servings

1/4 cup slivered almonds
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, slivered
6 dried apricot halves, cut into thin strips
3/4-pound (about 8 cups) baby spinach leaves
About 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper

1. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, stir the almonds until lightly toasted, 3 to 4 minutes.

2. Add the oil to the pan. When the oil is hot, stir in the garlic and apricots; cook, stirring, until garlic is beginning to brown, about 2 minutes.

3. Add the spinach a few handfuls at a time; sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon salt and pepper to taste, and add more spinach as the leaves cook down. Stir until all the spinach is wilted, 2 to 3 minutes. Add more salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot or at room temperature.

Part cosmo, part Champagne cocktail, this is a tasty bevvie perfect for using up any leftover bubbly.

Are you ready to ring in the new year?

What are you looking forward to in 2012?

Me? I can’t wait for Mad Men to return.

I’ll be toasting that and all the other great things to come with this cocktail this weekend (I’m thinking Sunday morning–a little hair of the dog…).

With a wink towards my favorite show, I like to serve this cocktail in vintage Champagne glasses. I have a pretty extensive collection, vintage and non, and keep adding to it with estate sale finds. (Just look at the details on the glass–even the bottom is beautiful.)

I recommend using a low-price sparkling wine for this drink. It should still be good quality, but the flavors will mingle with the other ingredients so a less expensive bottling will suffice. And, of course if you have any leftovers from the night before use those.

Bottoms Up! And Happy New Year!

2 ounces cranberry juice
1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice
1/2 ounce Cointreau
Sparkling wine, about 1/4 cup
Lemon or lime slices for garnish

Fill a shaker with ice. Add the cranberry juice, lemon juice and Cointreau. Shake well. Pour into a chilled Champagne glass. Fill the glass with the sparkling wine and add a slice of lemon or lime.

If you only bake one cookie this season, make it a Ranger Cookie. They are chock-full of goodies.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels nostalgic this time of year. Not only for Christmases past but for family gatherings and traditions of all kinds that seem to have been lost.

So it’s no surpise, when I read Katie Arnold-Ratliff’s story, The Rise and Fall of the Recipe Card on Slate, I began to think about the lost tradition of hand-writing recipes and what my family recipe box means to me.

My recipe box—a small tin box with flowers painted on the rounded top—belonged to my mother, so it’s only one generation of history, but it chronicles my life in the kitchen. It has recipes from when I was small, my parents were still married and my mother cooked things like Chicken Kiev for dinner parties.

There are recipes for “See’s Fudge” and toffee from a Christmas spent with my mother’s then-husband’s family after my parents divorced. Those recipes are completely different in look and worldliness than my own family’s recipes.

A few fancier cards are from the sisters and mothers of men I dated and for dishes like hot artichoke dip and Brie en croute. These capture a moment in culinary history as much as my own.

Overall, the box is filled with an eclectic collection, but all are significant to me. Equally significant is the one recipe card missing from the box. It was for banana nut bread.

I taught my niece Lauren to bake using that recipe. Year after year, as she grew up she baked that recipe until the card was filthy from splatters and batter on Lauren’s small hands, but in good way. Finally, I had to give the card to her. Not only because of the recipe it detailed but because by then I knew it was a piece of family history for her to keep–her grandmother’s handwriting on a well-used recipe card.

This summer as I began scouring estate sales for vintage kitchenware, I came across a recipe box filled with recipes. I picked it up and brought it home enamored by the history of someone else’s life in the kitchen. A new obsession was born.

So far, I’ve only found two recipe boxes, but both are doozies. The first belonged to a woman who was moving. It contains a small selection of recipes, mostly cookies and most of which have a name written on the top right corner as though the recipe originated with Joan, Edith or Betty Sue. Tucked between the cookie cards are recipes clipped from the newspaper as well. Given the treasure trove of fancy glassware and kitchen items at this sale, it was easy for me to imagine this woman hosting ladies’ lunches where the women gossiped and later called each other on the phone for the recipe of the dish they enjoyed.

The second box I bought from a woman who had just moved from the family ranch in the hills to a small house in town that had belonged to her mother. The recipe box had been hers. She wasn’t planning on cooking from it anymore or keeping it. Her grown children were there when I purchased it so there would be no surprises later.

There is something about buying vintage kitchenware or collecting recipe boxes that is not just about the aesthetics or rarity of the pieces, I actually feel like I’m preserving a little bit of American history. As Katie’s article pointed out, everything and everyone is going digital. And, that includes me. Jack and I have just started a new-media publishing company. So collecting recipe boxes feels like keeping the scales balanced—a handwritten recipe here, an ecookbook there.

The recipe below is from my recipe box. It is written in my handwriting, which means my grandmother dictated it to me when I was old enough to bake and be interested in what it meant to her to bake her son’s favorite cookie. I hope you’ll bake it, write it on to a recipe card and then tuck it into your family’s recipe box. Happy holidays!

Ranger Cookies

My grandmother never baked cookies. She made cakes from scratch, but her baking started and stopped there. Except for Ranger Cookies, which she made for my Uncle Larry because they were his favorite. She also never wrote down recipes. Everything was in her head. When I wanted a recipe, she’d tell me what she did and I’d write it down. My recipe writing skills weren’t so developed then so when I pulled out this recipe it was just a list of ingredients and the oven temperature. Ironically, this and pumpkin pie are the only baking recipes I have from my grandmother, neither of which do I think she ever made for me. Nonetheless, this season I decided to bake these cookies after finding the recipe card in my recipe box.

Yields: 48 cookies

1 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour (or whole wheat flour)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 cups crispy rice cereal
2 cups old-fashioned oats
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Mix the butter and sugars together an electric mixing bowl until light and fluffy. With the motor running on medium-low, add the eggs one at a time. Add the vanilla. Stop the mixer, scrape down the sides, mix on medium-low until thoroughly mixed.

Remove the bowl from the mixer and stir in the flour, baking soda and salt using a sturdy wooden spoon. Add the cereal, oats, chocolate chips, coconut and walnuts. Stir until all of the ingredients are blended well.

Drop the dough by spoonful onto the baking sheets and bake 10 to 12 minutes. The color will remain pale and is not an indication of doneness. The cookies may also seem a little loose when first removed from the oven. That’s okay. Do not bake any longer or the cookies will become hard and dry.

What to drink: A spritzy Moscato will add a bit of festivity if you serve these cookies for dessert. Try Ceretto Moscato d’Asti would be a terrific choice.

Hidden behind the glass is my family's recipe box on the right. On the left is a box I bought.

The perfect hostess gift.

Everywhere I look lately, there are gift guides with lots of suggestions for holiday hostess gifts. One of the best came from Heather John, who featured caviar powder! as a hostess gift on her über-stylish blog, thefoodinista.

My neighbor Lesley is the master of hostess gifts and must have a stash of them because every time she comes over she brings something. It’s usually small and always perfect, from a wooden salad set I use all the time to a box of sublime cookies we devoured in one night.

I love looking at all of the suggestions and have daydreamed about bringing that just-right hostess gift. But, alas I’m usually running out the door with a bottle of wine and maybe a tussie mussie (that’s right—a tussie mussie) from my garden.

This season, I’ve vowed to do it right. Lucky for me, Wes Martin, the brilliant author whose book, “There’s a Party in My Pantry” we’ve just published, has a recipe called Crunchy White Chocolate – Cherry Bonbons that are guaranteed to make a hostess smile. And the best thing about them: homemade. Yep. Finally, I have the perfect hostess gift. Even better: I’ll add a bottle of Schramsberg Crémant or Royal Tokaji Mád Cuvée.

Here’s the recipe from “There’s a Party in My Pantry.”

Crunchy White Chocolate – Cherry Bonbons

There’s nothing more stressful than a last minute dinner party invitation and not having anything on hand to bring the host. These super-simple, tasty candies are impressive, and, like those notorious potato chips, you can’t eat just one. They remind me of all the great goodies my mom used to make during the holidays, but these can be whipped up at any time of the year, for any occasion.

Note: It’s critical to use a high-quality white chocolate sold in bulk, not candy bars, as they have added ingredients to keep them soft. White chocolate can be temperamental, so do not overheat or overmix it or it can seize.

Makes about 18

12 ounces high-quality white chocolate, finely chopped
1/4 cup cherry jam or jelly, at room temperature
1/2 cup crisped rice cereal
1/2 cup dried cherries, finely chopped
1/4 cup slivered almonds, finely chopped
Confectioner’s sugar, for rolling, optional

1. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. Fill a saucepan one-third full with water and bring to a boil.

3. Put the white chocolate in a heatproof bowl and place on top of the saucepan, making sure the water does not touch the bowl. Immediately turn off the heat. Let stand without stirring for about 10 minutes.

4. Remove the bowl from the saucepan, and with a rubber spatula, gently stir the chocolate until smooth. If there are any small bits of whole chocolate, let stand a few minutes and stir gently until they dissolve. Cool to room temperature.

5. Stir the jam into the chocolate, followed by the cereal, cherries, and almonds and mix until evenly combined. Use a small ice cream scoop or tablespoon, scoop ping pong-size balls of the mixture and place them on the lined baking sheet.

6. When all of the balls are formed, use your hands to roll them until very smooth and round. If they are still soft and flatten too much, roll again to reshape them. Sometimes I form them into patties, chill them, and dip them in melted dark chocolate – delicious!

7. Let stand at least 1 hour at room temperature to firm up. Roll the balls in confectioner’s sugar, if desired and store them in an airtight container at room temperature.

At least the sideburns pulled off easily.

Another Thanksgiving.

The stuffing was nearly forgotten in the microwave where I’d put it to be warmed up. The cranberries were completely forgotten in the fridge. But someone remembered the tattoo pen, which will never be forgotten.

There was no dance-dance revolution. There was a dance contest, but mostly it was a bunch of kids jumping around on the ground, imitating breakdancing the best they could.

Grace was replaced with a toast. We never went around the table to share what we were most grateful for. This may have been a blessing because my list is so long this year we would never have eaten.

It has been a remarkable year and had I listed everything I was grateful for, there might have been a special category called Gratitude and Inspiration. It would have included:

Shannon Halikas, my coworker and friend, who has patiently helped Jack and I develop Hang Time Press.

Bloggers without Borders, which gathered the blogging community to offer support to Jennie Perillo and her girls, which was later directed to the Liz Logelin Foundation.

Both Kate Washington and Wes Martin, both of whom I’ve had the good fortune to reconnect with and work with this year.

Heidi Swanson, who continually inspires me and influences me in all digital and culinary ways.

Katherine Martinelli, who has become a pen pal and someone I look forward to working with because she is not only an extremely talented photographer, wonderful cook and prolific blogger, she is also a contagiously generous individual.

Amanda Magee, whose blog, the Wink I accidentally discovered and love for its honest portrayal of parenting emotions.

Jennie Perillo for her grace, her strength and her beautiful writing. And, I must also say for her spiced cranberry sauce, which was forgotten in the fridge but pictured below.

(I am also indebted to Jennie for her moving blog post earlier this week. Because of it, for the first time in a long time, I didn’t look around the table and dwell on how sad I was because of who wasn’t with us; instead I felt immense gratitude for who was there and that we are all so healthy and happy, no doubt helped along a little by some fun ink, delicious and abundant food and free-flowing wine.)

And speaking of the ink, I have to thank Auntie Amy for always doing more than she should every year at Thanksgiving and this year for walking away from the tattoo pen possibly looking crazier than me!

Of course there are so many more people who leave an impression on me everyday and so many more to whom I am so, so grateful for–I only hope I tell everyone enough how much.

This year, like every other has had its challenges, but I’ve come to feel so lucky every day and have grown a deeper appreciation for the small things: the color of changing leaves, the way Josh’s finger moves along the words when he reads to me and the good fortune of living somewhere where fresh food is so available.

At this moment, I am beside myself with joy over the blessing of Thanksgiving leftovers, and more specifically for a turkey sandwich made with a parker roll, mayonnaise, salt, pepper and a slice of a still-juicy (yes juicy!) turkey breast. Best paired with a spoonful of forgotten cranberry sauce and a glass of ice-cold milk.

Now, if only I could figure out how to get these tats off my face!

The best part of Thanksgiving!

Guests will love this snack mix and never know that you made it as though you were pulling a rabbit out of a hat!

It’s official! And it feels a little magical. Hang Time Press, a new venture Jack and I have started together has been launched to the world–or at least to a few thousand friends, family and media who received the press release today. And our website is now live as well.

We are so excited about this. We’ve been hard at work since last spring, and have already lined up cooks and authors we love to create books for us, including Wes Martin.

Wes and I go way back–to when I was the most terrible hostess in the world at the now-defunct Rubicon (the two are not related) and Wes was a budding food stylist. Through our friend, the uber-talented Frankie Frankeny, Wes styled my second cookbook, wraps. Since then he’s moved to New York and found his place behind the camera as well as in front of it on such cooking programs as the Rachael Ray and  Martha Stewart shows.

We reconnected over Wes’s clever facebook challenges: he asks friends to list three ingredients in their kitchen and then he offers totally delicious suggestions for meals. I loved his cleverness and asked him to write a book for us.

Going full-speed, he quickly created “There’s a Party in My Pantry!”. It is the ultimate survival guide for impromptu entertaining–perfect for the holiday season. It includes recipes for apps, main courses and desserts. picked this recipe because it has a few ingredients from the first book we worked on together and it’s super delish.

For more information about Wes’s book and how to purchase it click here.

And by the way, I’d pair these salty snacks with beer or a zesty white wine, like sauvignon blanc.

“Empty the Pantry” Sesame Snack Mix

Do you have a few random packs of ramen noodle soup that you keep chucking from one shelf to the other in your pantry? Here’s a great way to use them up, along with nuts, leftover bagels, and those half-full containers of snacks like wasabi peas that no one will finish. This recipe is easily doubled or tripled for a crowd, and the crunchy noodles give it an unusual appearance – everyone will know it isn’t store-bought mix in a big plastic tub!

1 (3-ounce) pack ramen noodle soup, any flavor
1 sesame (or other flavor) bagel
1 cup roasted unsalted shelled peanuts
1/2 teaspoon sesame seeds
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea, plus more as needed
Pinch cayenne pepper
Pinch garlic powder
1/2 cup crunchy wasabi peas, optional
1/2 cup dried edamame, optional

1. Preheat the oven to 375° F. Position 2 racks in the center of the oven.

2. Fill a small saucepan with 2 cups water and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Add the ramen noodles and cook for 3 minutes (reserve the flavor packet for another use). Drain and rinse the noodles under cold water until cooled; shake the colander to remove excess water. Spread the noodles out on a clean towel to dry briefly.

3. With a serrated knife, slice the bagel in half horizontally. Lay each half, cut side down, on a cutting board and slice them into 1/8-inch thick half-moons. (I’ve also cut up the heels of wheat bread that no one will eat and thrown it in the mix.) Transfer to a large mixing bowl along with the peanuts.

4. In a small bowl, whisk the olive and sesame oils, 1/2 teaspoon salt, cayenne, and garlic powder until combined. Put the noodles in a small bowl and drizzle 1 teaspoon of the oil mixture over them. Use your fingers to toss the noodles until evenly coated and spread them out in a very thin single layer on a baking sheet. Lightly sprinkle with salt.

5. Pour half of the remaining oil mixture over the bagel pieces and peanuts and toss gently with a rubber spatula; drizzle the rest of the oil over the bagel and peanuts and toss well to coat. Spread in a single layer onto a second baking sheet and sprinkle the sesame seeds over it. Lightly sprinkle salt over the bagels, peanuts.

6. Transfer both pans to the oven and bake the bagel/peanut mixture until just light golden, 12-15 minutes; continue baking the noodles until golden brown, about 30 minutes total.

7. Cool everything on the pans; transfer the bagels and nuts to a serving bowl; break the toasted noodles into small pieces and add them, along with the wasabi peas and edamame and mix well. Enjoy with a cold beer.

Makes about 6 cups