mexconnect.com-In addition to being served in Mexican homes during the Christmas and New Year holiday season, hot Mexican holiday punch, or ponche navideño is sold at night by street vendors who ladle it out from steaming cylindrical vats. The tejocote is a small fruit, golden in color when mature, similar in taste to an apple, but with a pastier texture. It is not easily found outside of Mexico, but apples make a good substitute. In Michoacan, a piece of beet is often added instead of jamaica to color the punch.

Various stories of how the salad was invented exist. One says that it came about in the 1930s at the Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant, where it became a signature dish. It is named for the restaurant's owner, Robert Howard Cobb. Stories vary as to whether the salad was invented by Cobb or by his chef, Chuck Wilson. The legend is that Cobb had not eaten until near midnight, and so he mixed together leftovers he found in the kitchen, along with some bacon cooked by the line cook, and tossed it with their French dressing.

amazingribs.com-Pulled pork is a great place for the beginner to start experimenting with smoke cooking. It is made from big clod of meat that is a lot more forgiving than something like ribs. And you can do it right on practically any grill with a lid.

Chicken Tips: Bake or boil a whole chicken or get a rotisserie chicken.  Extract the meat removing the skin and bones.  Cube the Chicken.  

Michelle Obama served this recipe to cast of The View when made a guest appearance.  Blackberries are just one of the ingredients White House Pastry Chef Bill Yosses gets from the Presidential garden.  See the recipe for the Blackberry Buttermilk Bundt Cake with Orange Glaze. 

Teresa Bryant is a wife, a mom of two little ones and a fabulous cook. This recipe is Mrs. Bryant's favorite crabcake recipe. Originally from the Maryland/ DC area, she knows a thing or two about crabcakes.  

Hogates was a part of Washington DC local history.  It closed in 2001 after 63 years of business.  This recipe was posted in the Washington Post.  MCCN Fan Teresa Bryant insisted that we post this recipe. She scanned the clipping and shared the recipe with us.  She has delectable memories.

This recipe is donated from a family with origins in Puebla, Mexico.

 

Try this early Girl Scout Cookie^® recipe! Courtesy of Girlscouts.org

Pozole (Nahuatl: potzolli, which means "foamy"; variant spellings: pozolé, pozolli, posole) is a ritually significant, traditional pre-Columbian soup or stew from Mexico. Pozole was mentioned in Fray Bernardino de Sahagún's "General History of the Things of New Spain" circa 1500 CE. It is made from nixtamalized cacahuazintle corn,[1] with meat, usually pork, chicken, turkey, pork rinds, chili peppers, and other seasonings and garnish.[3] Vegetarian and vegan versions also exist.

In the mid-1700s, German Protestant settlers in the Nazareth area of Pennsylvania created a sugar cookie recipe called the Nazareth Sugar Cookie.Sugar cookies probably derived from an earlier, unleavened cookie called a jumble. In North America, sugar cookies are popular during the holidays of Christmas and Halloween.

Chef Jay Jones is one of our favorite contributing chefs. Visit him on facebook for tempting recipes. This looks like a way to get a party started:

My good friend Kaye Gibson is the lady at church that when she sets out her dish then you know it will be gone in a matter of minutes.  Her reputation for good Southern Style Cooking is quite impressive from Sour Cream Pound Cake to Chess pie.  Now she gives us some chocolate decadence with this Texas 20 Minute Sheet Cake Recipe:

Visiting my grandparents in the southern United States, I could count on trying something new to me.  Living in New York allowed me to taste foods of other cultures, but going down south introduced me to family recipes and traditions.  The Sweet Potato Jack is one of them.  This is not the family recipe but I am pretty impressed with Foodnipps.com interpretation of the recipe.  Growing up, our version was fried but in the much later years of my life, my grandmother became advocate of baking them.

 

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A few years I got the opportunity to interview Patrick and Gina Neely of the Food Network and we talked about a variety of things.  Among the recipes mentioned, was creamed collard greens.  I tried this recipe and it has been a winner for me. It puts a spin on the classic African American preparation of collards and gives a robust earthy taste to what would be the typical creamed spinach.

The name "Bloody Mary" is associated with a number of historical figures—particularly Queen Mary I of England. However, it was created in the United States.

Cobblers are an American deep-dish fruit dessert or pie with a thick crust (usually a biscuit crust) and a fruit filling (such as peaches, apples, berries). Some versions are enclosed in the crust, while others have a drop-biscuit or crumb topping.This recipe for Peach Cobbler comes from Rebekah Lewis of Pasadena, California.

Every I throw a Garden Party and every  the items which must be on the menu are Martino's teacakes, moist and delicious heavenly confections. Martino's has been around for decades and is located in Burbank.  In an effort to duplicate the recipe, my friend Ann Jones provided me with a recipe that she hears is pretty close in the results in flavor and texture.