Traveling = Too busy to bake! So the next best thing, go to lovely people for some guest blogs:-)
Thank you again Nelly for sharing very helpful techniques for how to make polenta, roasted garlic, and poached eggs. Now when I get home, I need to make some polenta. I am craving it!
Today I am excited to introduce you to a man I simply adore, my husband! He is a writer, and a very talented writer, I might add. He has always had a way with words, and has even written a couple screenplays. Television and Film are his background, his passion, and his true love….well, besides me of course.
He has always said, “I don’t know what else I would do, if I didn’t have my job in television. It is all I know, and all I want to know, it makes me happy.”
When I met Brian 17 1/2 years ago, I was working on my first degree in broadcasting. He was working in the department at the time. We discovered we loved spending time together, but we didn’t do well working together. So all these years we have said no to working on anything together, it is a mutual agreement.
Just recently we made a monumental discovery, we love working together in the kitchen AND we make a great team in the kitchen. He is my Dip Chef (no seriously, he makes rockin’ dips from scratch!) He is my Grill Chef too, I will only eat grilled chicken that he has made ( I am not a big meat eater, and really dislike dry meat.) He makes moist, delicious grilled chicken, YUM!
I hope you enjoy this post as much as I did! This recipe is easy, fun, and seriously perfect to put out for your New Year’s Eve event:-) Enjoy!
Anyone who knows me knows I LOVE my brown liquor.
That statement is false. Fun, but false. While I like the taste of a good bourbon, I’m not a huge drinker. For some reason this holiday season, I’ve been wanting to make Bourbon Balls. Not sure why.
A few years ago, when I was working radio for the University of Arizona hockey team, one of the fans I had come to know over the years would bring in Rum Balls for the December games and always went out of his way to stop at the booth and offer me one. Wow. These were amazingly powerful, and it felt like you were taking a shot with each rum ball, and for all I knew you probably were.
So, my lovely and talented wife and I wanted to make bourbon balls. But we didn’t know how. So she reached out to her vast army of food bloggers and was sent a recipe from Chef Troy Gagliardo. Seemed easy enough.
Our first stop had to be the liquor store. North Carolina is one of 19 states that uniformly sells liquor, meaning the state controls distribution, etc… and taxing… and hard liquor can only be sold at something called the ABC Store. So you can’t just run into the Harris Teeter and buy alcohol. Beer and wine, yes. Liquor, nope.
I tend to respond to things visually, and of course I could have gone with Jack Daniels or Jim Beam, but wanted to expand my bourbon horizons. I came across a label and bottle I was attracted to and bang, I had my bourbon. I’m really that superficial.
Evan Williams 1783 Kentucky Small Batch Bourbon Whiskey. So of course, I had to try it. Very smooth… hints of citrus, oak, warm but not hot… this is a great bourbon for the price. In the words of the immortal Jackie Gleason, “Mmmmm, that’s good booze!”
Here’s the recipe for the really easy Bourbon Balls.
- 1½ Cups-Powered Sugar
- 2 Tablespoons-Coco Powder-unsweetened
- ¼ Cup-Jack Daniels Black Label
- 2 Tablespoons-Light Corn Syrup
- 2½ Cups-Lorna Doone Cookies-crumbs
- 1 Cup-pine nuts toasted, coarsely chopped
- Mix together 1 cup of the powdered sugar with the coco powder until well combined.
- In a separate bowl whisk together the Jack Daniels and light corn syrup.
- Stir the Jack Daniels mixture into the coco powder mixture add the cookie crumbs and the pine nuts.
- Stir together until combined, roll the mixture into balls.
- Roll each ball in the remaining ½ cup of powdered sugar and serve.
We made a change or two. Terra had found some fresh pecans during one of her travels so we subbed the pecans for the pine nuts.
We also made a mistake, and used the full cup and a half powdered sugar/cocoa mixture in the balls themselves (rather than saving some to roll the balls in) and had to increase some of the other ingredients to compensate. Initially, the doughy mixture was looking a little dry, so we added another tablespoon of bourbon.
These Bourbon Balls are everything I wanted them to be. Sweet and nutty, with just enough bourbon flavor to satisfy those who like the taste of bourbon, but not so much that a non drinker wouldn’t want to have another.
They would be a great addition to a New Year’s Eve party, and maybe best of all they’re ridiculously easy to make. No baking, 50 balls to a batch, literally 30 minutes later you are done.
And I strongly recommend resisting the urge to get Jack or Jim involved. Stretch your boundaries like we did. By looking around, I found a really nice bourbon, at a good price, that tastes much better than the bourbons that may come to mind first.
So raise your bourbon ball, and have a happy and safe new year’s celebration.
In the words of Colonel Sherman T. Potter, “Here’s to the New Year. May she be a damn site better than the old one, and may we all be home before she’s done.”
This is how you may see things after a few of them!
Thank you to my sweet hubby! Even after 17 1/2 years together, and almost 15 years married, he can still make me giggle:-)
If you want to say hi to Brian, or you want to get a good giggle now and then, follow him on Twitter @ncbalto72.
He has a website he created 2 1/2 years ago, it is called RadioExiles. RadioExiles is on Twitter, and Facebook!
I will be joining in the fun New Year’s Eve Blog Hop on Saturday, I will be sharing a fun recipe round-up of all my top recipes for 2011! I may be sharing my favorite and simple family recipe too:-)
Until next time, Come on in, Have a seat,
Hugs, Terra
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