MXS Cooks

 I love my French toast!  It is the perfect perfection of challah bread and cinnamon.  Growing up my mom made French toast frequently for breakfast during the school week.  Yes we were spoiled to have amazing breakfasts of pancakes, French toast, eggs and sausage or bacon pretty much every day.  Moms French toast was regular sliced bread (none of us were fans of whole wheat fread French toast but we dealt with it).  The egg, cinnamon, sugar, milk and vanilla recipe was standard but that cinnamon never really seemed to mix completely making the French toast blotchy with cinnamon blobs.  Again dealt with it. Then I moved to the bay area and discovered, ie. Met and fell in love with, my favorite bakery, semi Freddie's.  Who make the best cinnamon twist bread.  Yum https://www.semifreddis.com/breaducation/recipes

  Mia Cocktail This drink was created so Mia could enjoy a festive drink anytime we had an occasion for celebrating.   We started making it for her when she was about 5 years old and it has stood the test of time!  Love you Mia! Tangerine Juice (sweeter than regular orange juice, Trader Joe's has it!) Rose's Grenadine Bubbly water (any kind is fine) Pour Tangerine juice into festive glass, pour a bit of grenadine on top, it will make a pretty layer and then sink to bottom.  Top with bubbly water to give a bit of a fizz.  Give a quick and light stir so as not to mess up the layers too much. Adult versions: Add some citrus vodka and/or substitute Prosecco for the bubbly water   Fun and festive!

Our favorite holiday drink to serve our guests. Your guests will be impressed when you finish it off with the drops of douglas fir tincture. Watch the video on how to make the tincture, it's suprisingly easy to make if you have a whipped cream canister!. If not, you can skip this part (still yummy, but less wow factor!) Cindy Lou Who  2 oz Citrus Liquor (St Georges Citrus Vodka)   ½ oz simple syrup ½ oz lemon or lime juice   Top with Prosecco or Cava  3 drops of Douglas Fir Vodka/Tincture     Shake vodka, simple syrup and lemon juice in a shaker with ice.  Pour cubed ice into a tall Collins glass.  Pour vodka mixture over ice cubes.  Top with bubbly, pour in drops of douglas fir vodka and give a quick stir. I like to freeze cranberries in an ice tray to make it more festive and serve with a red/white straw or stirrer. 

  Serves 4-6.    This is a super easy affordable steak - just make sure you leave time to marinate, at least an hour. I serve with a salad and bam, I'm done. I also like to take this camping or for a cook out. Easy to throw on the grill and cooks up fast. Ingredients For Marinade: 6tablespoons olive oil 6medium cloves garlic , minced or pressed through a garlic press (about 2 tablespoons) 1 medium shallot , minced (about 3 tablespoons) 2tablespoons minced fresh rosemary For Steak: 1 flank steak (about 2 pounds), patted dry with paper towels 2teaspoons kosher salt 1/4teaspoon ground black pepper Instructions Marinate Steak Puree all marinade ingredients in blender until smooth, scraping down blender jar as needed. Place steak on rimmed baking sheet or in large baking dish. Using dinner fork, prick steak about 20 times on each side. Rub both sides of steak evenly with salt and then with paste. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate at lea

  Mom’s Salmon Patties    Ingredients 1 medium egg 1 can Wild Alaskan salmon 1/4 cup mayonnaise 1 TBSP lemon juice 1/4 cup finely chopped red bell pepper 3/4 cup crushed Garlic-Onion croutons 1 tsp Salt & ½ tsp pepper 3 TBSP butter Directions To crush the croutons, put them in a ziploc bag and use the bottom of a heavy pan or rolling pin to crush them.   In a medium bowl, beat the eggs.  Add the salmon and break it into small pieces with a fork.  Add mayo, lemon juice, red pepper, and S&P.       Form into a little smaller than a golf ball then flatten into cakes. In a skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Fry 3-4 minutes per side until golden brown. Serve with tartar sauce . I make my own mixing together 2 heaping Tablespoons of mayo, 2-3 tsp of dill pickle relish and a squeeze of lemon juice.  

Based on how my body responds, or rather, doesn't respond, to carbs, I've determined that I'm carb sensitive.  I seem to really only be able to make progress on losing weight when I cut out carbs from my diet.  Cutting out sugar hasn't been hard, remarkably, but cutting out breads, pasta, rice and other grains has been.  We were hosting an old friend and colleague who was visiting from India.  It's hard to believe we had known Shuba as long as we had and how long it'd been since we last saw her.  Shuba is vegetarian and has some other dietary restrictions, which coupled with my recent low-carb diet, posed some challenges for our dinner party.  We originally had planned for 5 and possibly kids, so I was struggling with so many requirements that needed to be met.  Finally I came up with a menu that worked for all and after finding out there were only be 4 adults and no kids, things did get easier.  But at that point I had already come up with my menu and didn