Best of 2009

Following our wedding in 2008 I started posting to our personal friends/family website (Chronicles of the Chrises) the recipes that I was making.  The purpose was merely to share photo, news, and recipes with our friends and family and hopefully have them contribute some of their favorite recipes as well.  While the whole sharing back thing didn't seem to work out, people did tell me about how they tried the recipes I was posting and enjoyed them.  After some inspiration following various cooking blogs, I decided why not start my own on blogger so that the whole world can see "what's cooking" (the name of the tab in Chronicles of the Chrises). 

And thus, during the middle of November 2009 just before Thanksgiving, Christine's Kitchen Chronicles was born and I added all the other recipes (backdating them) from Chronicles of the Chrises.  I maintained the site but my husband Chris was not convinced that anyone in this big world wide web was looking at it.  So, at the beginning of December, Chris taught me how to use Google Analytics to track hits to my site. 

In the approximately ONE AND 1/2 MONTHS that I started the site and began tracking hits, there have been 395 unique visitors, 558 visits, and 1,137 page views to this website.  I've had visitors from the US, Canada, Germany, UK, Qatar (where is that anyway?!), Hungary, Spain, Isle of Man (again, where is that?!), Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines!  For that, I thank you all and I hope that the site continues to gain readership (tell your friends!). 

Since it seems there ARE people out there (Google doesn't lie!) please leave me a message and talk to me.  What recipes have you tried from my site and enjoyed?  Did you have a personal favorite in 2009 not already listed here?  Is there a recipe you'd like to see me make?  Help me continue making this a better experience for you and help to prove to my husband that I truly do have readers out there!

As usual, inspiration has driven me to make a "Best of 2009" entry even though this wasn't a full year and we're already a full week into the new decade.  (By the way, do you say "Two thousand and ten" or "Twenty ten"?...I personally go for the latter).  Out of 69 recipes in 2009, you'll find reader and personal favorites below.  Better late than never, right?  ENJOY!

Top 2009 Googled Results:

1. Cha Cha's White Chicken Chili
2. Finn Nisu Bread+
3. Cheesecake Cupcakes

Top 2009 Reader Favorites*:

1. Christmas Sandwich Cremes
2. Iced Sugar Cookies+
3. Assorted Truffles+**
4. Spinach Sausage and Cheese Manicotti**
5. Caramel Apple Cheesecake Pie+**

2009 Additional Personal Favorites:
  

1. Loaded Baked Potato Soup
2. Penne a la Vodka
3. Hot Spinach Artichoke Dip
4. Chicken Pot Pie
5. Jamie's Minestrone
6. Momma N's Chili
7. Sweet Potato Souffle
8. Honey Lime Grilled Chicken
9. Pumpkin Whoopie Pies with Maple Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
10. Christine's Fried Rice

NOTES:
+Denotes original photography.  Please provide credit to Christine's Kitchen Chronicles if you choose to use any of these photos.  Many photo credits to their original respective owners from which these recipes were reposted.  I'm working on photographing my own food but some of these were posted before I truly understood food blog repost ettiquite.
* Based on Google analytics data beginning 12/6/09...so, to be fair, it's not a true best of this year but hopefully next year there will be better data!
** Denotes that these are also personal favorites

Finn Nisu Bread

Update 11/16/09: So I think there was a translation issue on the recipe card that I got this from...I believe the actual bread goes by "Nisu" or "Nisua" Bread, not Misua as originally posted.  I can understand how this may have happened through the years of passing down a recipe and so I'd like to try to fix it, if I can :).  This change is based on Google search (there's no way my little website could be the #1 hit on Google otherwise!).

Chris had a work dinner so what did I do to occupy my evening?  I made homemade bread.  BUT not just any bread, it was Finn Misua Bread!  As a tribute to my husband's Finnish heritage I asked what a popular dish was.  This bread was what Tom thought of and Mary Lynn had a recipe for it from a co-worker so I thought heck, I'd give it a try.

It made 4 very large loaves.  Our friend JJ came over as it was fresh out of the oven to help taste test and eat some.  The Finns apparently dunk this in coffee.  I'd say that for my first attempt at bread, it was pretty good.  Making bread isn't that difficult but it's time consuming so make sure you set aside a long block of time.  If I were to make it again, I would allow more time to rise (the 2 hrs instead of 1.5 each time) and add more sugar to the top.  The instructions said to "sprinkle" and did not give a set amount of sugar but Chris said it was not sweet enough so I'm changing the directions to "sprinkle liberally" :).

PS: The picture of the bread is the actual bread I made! It looked so pretty!  (Yeah in case you didn't know, I normally cheat and pull photos from the recipe/web!)

Finn Nisu Bread

Makes 4-5 loafs

Ingredients

• 2 cups milk
• 2/3 stick margarine
• 1 1/4 cups sugar + extra for sprinkling
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 large or 3 medium eggs
• 1 package + 1 tsp yeast (dry)
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 8 cups flour
• 10+ cardamom seeds (peeled and mashed) or ~1 tsp ground cardamom

Directions

1. On stove heat milk, margarine, sugar, and salt.  Don't let the mixture boil but allow it to dissolve and then pour into a large bowl and set aside to cool. 
2. Add ground cardamom seed to milk mixture.
3. In a small bowl, beat together eggs, yeast, and water.
4. Add beaten egg and yeast mixture to cooled milk mixture.
5. Add ~4-5 cups flour and mix by hand until a stretchy mixture is formed.  Add the rest of the flour 1 cup at a time, kneading with your hands.
6. Let dough stand in a warm place (a warm oven works well) for 1.5 to 2 hours.
7. Punch dough down and knead on a floured surface then cut dough into 4-5 pieces.
8. Cut each of the pieces into 3 pieces and roll then braid the 3 pieces together.  Repeat until all 4-5 larger dough pieces have been rolled and braided.
9. Grease a cookie sheet and place braids on sheet.
10. Beat another egg with 2 Tablespoons of water and brush over each loaf.  Sprinkle liberally with sugar.
11. Let braided bread rise another 1.5 to 2 hours in a warm place.
12. Bake at 375* for 25 minutes.