FACTS: The MARTINI GLASS...

Favourite Food Quote (#8): "Cooking is not a science but an art, mistakes are okay..."

Favourite food quote this week...

"Cooking is not a science but an art, mistakes are okay, messes are fine—the pleasure is in the creating and the sharing of the result." - Lori Pollan

Amen to that! 


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MUSSELS FOR CHRISTMAS - Belgian Style

Check out this old recipe I found on an old blog I had years ago, back in 2012. Some of the photos aren't the greatest but hey! we all had to start somewhere. It's a long post so make sure to click 'View more' just above the Share buttons!...

So today I thought I'd share with you a recipe that has been made for me many times by a wonderful Belgian friend who always lamented every time he made it, how this was a favourite with them around Christmas time.

MUSSELS With HOME FRIES!

Instead of the usual turkey and ham and stuffing and gravy...(mmmm), and all that good stuff, I wanted to make something different this year for Christmas. Actually, I've made this mussels recipe a few times before around Christmas time but this time around (now that I'm armed with a camera), I wanted to show you how it was made. Ready? Let's go!

Day 1 - Preparing the Mussels

First, I bought roughly around 2-3lbs (900 - 1300 grams), of live mussels PER person, which was ideal. 

Next - here comes the laborious part, (I think), rinsing and soaking them overnight in cold, salted water in order to clean and purify the mussels.  I filled a bucket with cold water and then added some table salt.  Actually, lots of table salt, lol.

On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a salinity of about 3.5% (35 g/L, 599 mm) This means that every kilogram (roughly one litre by volume) of seawater has approximately 35 grams (1.2 oz) of dissolved salts

Considering this, I tried replicating the same salinity in the pail of water.

After topping up with more water, I swished them around one more time just to make sure they were all nicely covered in that salted water. (Brrrr, that water was FREEZING!)

Eventually, they will sink to the bottom as they open up to clean themselves.

The mussels think they are again in high tide and therefore open to clean and feed.

Day 2 - Preparing the Vegetables, Fries and Mussels

Have the following ingredients ready to mix with your mussels:

• salt
• pepper
• onions
• celery
• water

Quarter, or slice in rings, the onions - whatever you like, I don't really care, lol. Then chop up the celery.   

STRAWBERRY JAM (Cooked)

Is it me or have there been a lot of strawberries on sale lately? It's not even strawberry season yet - nowhere near it! As a matter of fact, it was pretty scarce here for awhile in stores then all of a sudden - bang! They're everywhere! And I just keep buying them up! Now I have all these strawberries piled up in containers in my fridge. What is one to do with them all? I can only eat so many and I already have frozen ones for smoothies. Oh, I know! I'll make some strawberry jam!

I've made homemade jam before, but only the freezer kind - and that was centuries ago.
I searched quickly online for a strawberry jam recipe and found this one by BBC Good Food.

The recipe had some good tips and it called for a bit of butter - something I've never heard of being used in jam before, so I decided to give it a try. The butter helps to get rid of any 'scum' left after the boiling and skimming process.

Layered CHOCOLATE Mousse Cake with Chocolate Ganache.

Good Lord! What can I say about this chocolate-layered mousse cake? It's simply a chocolate lover's dream. It's layers of rich and moist, chocolatey goodness topped off with a chocolate ganache.

This one requires a bit of time and patience but if I can make it - anyone can because I neither have the time nor patience for these kinds of recipes but somehow I always manage to pull them off! In fact, I've pulled it off about 11 times already, no word of a lie folks! ELEVEN TIMES! Once for work, once for a birthday party, once for a neighbour... and the rest of the times for me, for the family.

I even made some chocolate molds using some more chocolate chips that were tempered earlier.

I've made 2 at a time...

... and even once drizzled one with a bit of white chocolate on top which didn't look like much but it sure tasted great! Every last bit!

What a mess of chocolaty goodness! 

For this chocolate mousse cake, I used recipes from 3 different sites (with some slight alterations of course) because I not only looked for the 'best' of each recipe but they also had to contain ingredients I had on hand (or could substitute easily):