Good Housekeeping The Great Christmas Cookie Swap Cookbook

Good Housekeeping helps home bakers enter into the joy, camaraderie, and pure deliciousness of this tradition with a new collection of 60 favorite Christmas cookie recipes from around the world—each configured to make batches of at least eight dozen cookies. Choose from holiday classics and contemporary twists; they’re easy to make with everyday ingredients. And each recipe has been triple-tested for success in the famed Good Housekeeping Test Kitchen, so you can bake with confidence. For extra help, there are also great tips on techniques and shortcuts, as well as fun ideas for throwing the best cookie swap ever. Finally, as a special bonus, the book features removable blank recipe cards in the back—so you can pass along the recipe.

Diabetic Holiday Recipes

Celebrate the season and create tasty new traditions with Diabetic Holiday Recipes. You'll find more than 75 delicious festive dishes that fit into a healthful meal plan, from mouthwatering appetizers and elegant entrées to dazzling desserts. There's no need to sacrifice—now it's easy to eat healthy during the holidays.

The Twelve Days of Christmas Cookbook: The Ultimate in Effortless Holiday Entertaining

“Twelve Days” to a Delicious Christmas! Wonderfully unique, The Twelve Days of Christmas Cookbook will delight taste buds and make your Christmas even merrier! Featuring tasty recipes organized into fun categories including “BreadsA-Rising,” “SoupsA-Simmering,” “SidesA-Steaming, and “KidsA-Cooking,” plus easy entertaining tips and ideas, this sure-to-be-a-favorite cookbook is overflowing with great recipe ideas for the entire holiday season and beyond.

The Soup Bible

Cook up the great taste of comfort with this collection of more than 150 recipes for soups of all kinds, most with full-page color photos. An extensive 16-page introduction covers all aspects of soups, including equipment, getting started, history of soup, garnishing and a glossary. Find recipes that can be ready in as little as 30 minutes as well as a slow cooker chapter. Discover new flavors as you cook your way through seven chapters of recipes selected to entice and satisfy everyone's appetite.

Chicken and Poultry Bible

The first chapter presents the general historical background, and this is followed by a detailed discussion of the various types of poultry - chicken, turkey, duck, goose, guinea hen, squab, and quail. The heart of the book comprises step-by-step instructions and photographs in the following eight chapters: Stocks, Soups, and Sauces; Poaching and Steaming; Stewing and Braising, Frying and Roasting; Barbecuing; Baking and Deep-Frying; Far East Specialties; and Cold Delicacies.

Copyright © 2011 The Power Player Lifestyle Magazine, Inc. All Rights Reserved

HINT is releasing limited-time Yogi Bear and Boo Boo bottles in its Strawberry-Kiwi flavor for the release of the Warner Brother’s 3D Yogi Bear movie due out this Christmas. The film, which stars Justin Timberlake, Dan Aykroyd and Anna Ferris, is an adaptation of Hanna-Barbera’s cartoon and will follow Yogi and Boo Boo as they try to save Jellystone Park from being closed down forever.

Smarter (and more health-conscience) than the average bears, Yogi and BooBoo will be drinking HINT, the beverage that contains zero calories, carbs and artificial sweeteners unlike other flavored waters, sodas or energy drinks. HINT is distributed to fine grocery stores and retailers nationwide. Fans can enter to win movie tickets at www.drinkhint.com/yogi

It is all about great flavor, but convenience does not hurt either and in fact in the first two following recipe ideas you can see how easy it is to do a normally time consuming operation. The Bradley will smoke and or cook up to a 26 pound turkey and the best news is it can be smoking in less than 3-minutes. Just plug it in, set smoker time, set cooking time and temperature and put in the flavor of wood you want and you are under way. No muss, no fuss, just great flavor. Every 20 minutes the Bradley will automatically feed a fresh low cost wood bisquette (looks like a small hockey puck) into the smoker.

You can easily mix the wood smoke flavors (impossible with other smokers and techniques) to your taste from 12 different available wood flavors. You also get to decide how much smoke you want to apply to the food and this smoke is not burned smoke so it is not bitter and packed with tars and creosotes like smoke that comes from burning wood.

Bradley wood suggestions for turkey or other fowl: Alder, Apple, Cherry, Hickory, Jim Beam, Oak, Maple, Pecan, and Bradley's special Blend.And, remember, with the Bradley, you can layer on various smoke flavors. Take 80 minutes of total smoking at 20 minutes each beginning (Bradley automatic feed) with pecan then apple, cherry, and finish with pecan again; incredible.

LAST, all of the below recipes will work with any smoker, but when we say work we mean it. All that messy starting up, waiting for the heat to get right, then management of the process and of course the fun filled clean up-all eliminated by the Bradley.

The following two super simple techniques are for smoke flavoring and other method cooking:

Kitchen Oven Simple

This is an incredibly quick ad easy way to put rich smoke flavor on an oven cooked turkey. Put your choice of Bradley wood bisquettes into the Bradley automatic feeder. For most turkeys and chicken benefit from 60-80 minutes (3-4 bisquettes) of heavy smoke and you will get an incredibly rich flavor. Place thawed, washed and dried turkey into the Bradley smoker and allow it to smoke for 60-80 minutes in the Bradley. For this recipe you need not turn on the Bradley cooker unit, just the smoke unit. Once the turkey is smoked prepare and cook it in your kitchen oven as you normally would. The flavor is amazing! Total Bradley cost, about $1.20-$1.50.

Smoke and oil frying

Generally, the only way to add flavor to deep fried turkey is to inject all kinds of stuff into the bird before lowering it (carefully) into the deep fryer. Well, this time try placing the thawed, washed and dried bird into your Bradley smoker for 60-100 minutes (no need to turn on the Bradley cooking unit). After this smoking period then season and deep fry it per your fryer's directions. What you get is a deep fried bird with rich smoke flavor-life is good and this fried bird is great! Total Bradley cost about $1.20-$1.80 and your fried bird loving friends will beg to learn how you did it.

The following recipes are for both smoking and cooking a 20-26 pound turkey in the Bradley smoker:

Brine Smoked Big Bird

Brining adds flavor and moisture in most any food. This Big Bird recipe will result in an incredibly rich flavored and succulent smoked turkey.

Ingredients:

2 C Bradley Demerara Cure 1C brown sugar 1/4C molasses 2Tbs whole peppercorns 2Tbs allspice berries

1Tbs whole cloves 1ts dried rosemary 1/2ts dried sage 2 bay leaves

11/2 gallon water 1/2 gallon apple cider 11/2 cups Jim Beam Bourbon

Preparation...

In a large pot combine all ingredients and bring to a boil and then remove and cool to 40 degrees F. Place a clean turkey in a large plastic pale or cooler, breast down and completely cover the bird with the brine. If needed add more water and apple cider. Place an ice bag on top of the bird to keep it completely submerged and cover the container and set aside in a refrigerator for 16 hours.

After brining is completed DISCARD ALL OF THE BRINE SOLUTION, dry the bird and place into the smoker preheated to 205-220 degrees F. You will need to cook the turkey a last 30-minutes per pound or until the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees F. Smoke the bird with Bradley Jim Beam wood bisquettes for about four hours. It is not recommended you have stuffing in the turkey during the smoke cooking period for this recipe.

Brine Injected Tom Turkey

This recipe is a variation on the previous recipe 2C Bradley Demerara Cure 21/4 C Kosher salt 11/2C brown sugar

3 bunches tarragon 3 bunches fresh parsley 6 bay leaves 2 Tbs minced fresh garlic 3 white onions finely chopped 9 Tbs black peppercorns (ground or cracked) 6 lemons (halved and squeezed)

Preparation...

Add all the ingredients to 3 gallons of water heat and bring to a boil until salt and sugar are completely dissolved. Chill down to 40 degrees F. Once cooled and ready for use remove 3- 6 cups of solution and strain through paper coffee filter. Inject this mixture into the bird with a food injector. Then place turkey into the brine and cover completely using a bag of ice to weigh the bird down and place in a refrigerator for 16-24 hours. Remove from brine and discard the brine. Remove the bird and keep refrigerated for 12-24 hours before smoke cooking. Place bird into the 200 degree preheated Bradley and smoke it for about four hours and then continue cooking for at least 30 minutes per pound or until the internal temperature reaches 150 degrees F. Then remove the bird and place it into a conventional oven preheated to 325 degrees F to crisp the skin and finish to at least 165 degrees F. - Press Report Shults Media Relations. Power-Up with Bradley Smokers at www.bradleysmoker.com

In Beverly Hills, normally you would expect a flowing red carpet, a line of limousines and a crowd of photographers vying for the best shot. Even though the paparazzi were far from sight, plenty of red was flowing inside of The Stars of Cabernet, held at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills.  Actually the color was more burgundy, as the event flowed into the evening and the guest had a chance to sample some of the finest Cabernet wines in all of California.

This rare event, which was hosted by Learn About Wines, and was the vision of its founder Ian Blackburn.  This elegant evening orchestrated the presentation of over 40 California wineries from, Malibu, Napa, Santa Cruz, Santa Ynez, St. Helena, Sonoma and Walla Walla all which specialize in the making of premium cabernet wines.  The reason why this event was so special, is because many of the wineries in attendance were small family vineyards who only cater to a select clientele and produce their quality cabernet’s in limited quantities.  To get all of these stars in the same room for an evening of fun and education was a real treat for wine connoisseurs!

The entry foyer, adjacent meeting room and outdoor patio was packed full of guest ranging from young casual wine consumers to experienced connoisseurs and wine investors.  The buzz in the room, no bun intended, was full of excitement as people were being introduced to a wide variety of first-class cabernet’s they may have never known existed.  As I made my way through I was pleased to meet Thomas Adams, president of BevBlitz, who was very enthusiastic about the evening and the publics turnout.  He commented that a couple of years ago this type of an event would not have been organized, which is a compliment to Learn About Wine’s progressive vision and sensitivity to the marketplace.

Since 1995, Learn About Wine has done the hard work of building a better culture for fine wine, opening the doors for more quality products to enter into the marketplace and has taught over 150,000 students.  It’s founder, Ian Blackburn, has the hard job of drinking wine for a living.  As a result, he plans over 100 public and private events each year to help educate, promote and bring together those who love making and enjoy drinking exceptional wine.  Learn About Wine stays busy buying collectable wines for high profile clients, hosting corporate events and planning luxury wine trips for members which will depart to Napa and Italy this coming February and April.

Ian keeps himself busy studying for his Masters of Wine, but frequently appears on radio, television and other social media outlets promoting wine education. Learn About Wine’s is most recently focused on its wine credential program which graduated over 300 wine students in the past couple of years with a Junior Wine Executive credential.  The 4-week program provides consumers and trade professionals with worldwide wine competency. For additional information on the Learn About Wine, L.A.W. School or other upcoming calendar of events visit their website at www.learnaboutwine.com .

To add a little spice and something sweet and nice, we thought you would enjoy learning more about the world’s most expensive chocolates that taste good and are available for the those who like to indulge in the taste of luxury chocolates. Our FAB FOOD chocolate picks are as follows.

Knipschildt's Chocopologie - $2,600 per pound $250 dark chocolate truffle with French black truffle

Knipschildt Chocolatier was founded in 1999 by Fritz Knipschildt, who got his culinary education as a chef in Denmark. The most-expensive chocolate he sells--a $250 dark chocolate truffle with a French black truffle inside--is available on a preorder-only basis. It's made of 70% Valrhona cacao, which is blended into a creamy ganache with truffle oil. The truffle is then hand-rolled with a dark truffle on the inside and dusted with cocoa powder.

Noka Vintages Collection - $854 per pound

A compilation of the finest dark chocolates obtained from selective plantations in Venezuela, Côte d'Ivoire, Trinidad and Ecuador.

NOKA Chocolate is an artisan chocolatier dedicated to handcrafting truffles and chocolates made with rare, single-estate dark chocolate. The company was founded by passionate advocates for gourmet chocolate who are devoted to encouraging an appreciation for chocolate quality and purity as well as the optimal tasting and gifting experience. For further information, visit NOKA's online boutique at www.nokachocolate.com.

Delfee - $504 per pound

Made by applying real 24K edible flakes of gold to each praline by hand. Ingredients are sugar, coconut oil, cocoa butter, milk powder and vanilla.

Richart  - $120 per pound

Made up of 70% Criollo cocoa from Venezuela, which is considered to be the best quality of chocolate in the world. Chocolates from Richart Design et Chocolat are for connoisseurs who appreciate beauty of design as well as ganaches infused with herbs, balsamics, spices, florals, and other sophisticated flavors.

Godiva "G" Collection - $117 per pound

The G All Hearts Collection is Godiva’s most upscale offering. Each G Collection heart is handmade and so fresh it only has a shelf life of a few weeks. Created exclusively for Godiva by renowned pastry chef Norman Love, the 15-flavor boxes include two new goodies: Lemon Drop, a tangy combination of lemon zest and creamy white chocolate, and Caramel Macchiato, a decadent blend of espresso, fresh cream, and velvety caramel.