Upcoming Meeting

Our next meeting will be February 21st.  We'll be joining cupid in his festivities with our theme or Food For Love.  Everyone should bring a dish based on love and/or romance.  If you are not already a member of Vixens In The Kitchen, but you may be interested, please leave a comment and you will be contacted.

January - Chocolate Raspberry Kiss Martini

Emtifah here -

I tend to go for the Latin Liquours - rum, tequilla, passionfruit liquour.  But for January I decided to take on the martini.  But being a girly girl - I wanted a flavored martini - not the classic.

So I found a recipe for a Chocolate Covered Cherry Martini.  This sounded really delish because I was in a chocolate and cherry combo mood.  Problem was it required chocolate vodka, cherry vodka, and creme de cacao - 3 liquors I did not have.  However - I did have Godiva liquer, Raspberry liquer, and vodka.  I also had a jar of chocolate raspberry syrup that I had bought on my summer trip in Maine.  Hence the birth of the Chocolate Raspberry Kiss Martini.

Ingredients:
1 cup ice cubes
1 shot Godiva/chocolate liquer
1 shot Raspberry liquer
2 shots Vodka
2 Tbsp/1 shot Half-and-Half (fat free works fine)
Dash Chocolate/Chocolate-Raspberry Syrup

Instructions:
Combine all ingredients in a drink shaker.  Place cover on shaker and then shake about 15-20 seconds.  Strain into martini glasses and serve.

If you want to make the drink super fancy - you could rim the sides of the glasses with cocoa powder or a red violet sugar.  You could also garnish with chocolate shavings, hershey kisses, raspberries, or even chocolate covered raspberries. 

This is a really strong drink- and it goes really far.  About 2/3rds of this recipe filled up a martini glass.  But it's incredibly yummy. 

If you are on Weight Watchers this recipe counts for about 10 points for a full serving.

January - A New Year, A New Recipe

For our innaugural meeting, we thought it was fitting to go with the theme, "A New Year, A New Recipe".  This meant that everybody had to bring something they had never made before. 

Overall we had an excellent first meal. 

Appetizers - Maritza made popcorn with kettlekorn salt.  This was a last minute substitute since Marjorie had a last minute emergency to attend to.  We were sad Marjorie wasn't able to make it - but we're looking forward to her contributions at upcoming meetings.  The popcorn was light and fluffy and just the right balance of sweet and salty.

Drinks - Emily got the lucky job of being our mixologist for the evening.  For our meeting, Emily debuted what she calls the Chocolate Raspberry Kiss Martini.  This is a real ladies drink - however, it does contain 3 types of liquors meaning that we each only had one and we drank it slow.  But these drinks were good to the last drop.

Entre - Big kudos has to go to Leanne/Violet for tackling the main course for our first meal.  Leanne will be the first to tell you that she has limited kitchen experience.  Despite that - she made an excellent dish called Penne Al La Betsy, a recipe originally from The Pioneer Woman.  The dish was fantastic - with the shrimp cooked right, a savory sauce with yummy roasted garlic. 

Side Dish - Sirisha covered one of the most important food groups - comfort food.  She made Potato Au Gratin.  He potatoes were golden, cheesey, and delicious.  She also lightened them up by using evaporated milk instead of cream.  This dish was cosy and perfect for the cold winter days we've been having.

Dessert - Maritza pulled the dessert card, and so she made a really yummy chocolate pudding pie.  The pie had a graham cracker crust and was topped with whipped cream.  The pie was rich, creamy, and delicious.  The perfect ending to our first meal.

 

Raising our glasses to the Vixens

And So It Begins

Back in 2005, I was posting an ad on Craig's List for a charity event I was putting on. What I ended up finding that day instead was one of the greatest groups I've ever belonged to - The Book Vixens. The Book Vixens was a book club for girls serious for chic lit. Once a month, we would gather at one of our houses and for a couple of hours we would talk about a book, gossip, drink, eat, and enjoy each others company.

If you had to ask me what is one thing that defines book clubs, I would tell you change. Although we started out with chic lic - our changes in books have changed - we've done mysteries, bios, science fiction, science. Over the last 5 years, the women in the club have had weddings, born children, lost loved ones, bought houses, been unemployed, gone to school, moved away/left. But the club is also a constant source of support and fun.

But like I said, things change. As our lives got busier, we weren't always reading the books. We weren't always reading our books. Reading is kind of important to a book club. We would still show up at the meetings though because it was our chance to catch up with the girls. Finally in October, we decided that it was time for the club to do what the we had done in our personal lives - evolve.

It's proper that at the start of this new decade, we say goodbye to the Book Vixens and say hello to Vixens in the Kitchen.

Yes, that is right - we are now a cooking club. Food has always been something that we've all enjoyed - and it's easy to gather around it. Every month we will have a theme and we will all be responsible for making something that fits with it. For some of us, this will be a learning opportunity - for others it will be a chance to explore the culinary world.

This blog will be the spot where we share our dishes - including our recipes (or links to recipes). We'll also post pictures from our dinners and share any other interesting stories related to our adventure in cooking. This is our electronic cookbook.

Let the tastiness begin!