For the Love of Food

When I arrived at my in-laws last week, there was a bag of Fingerling potatoes sitting on the counter. I got really excited. I’d never seen Fingerling potatoes in person before. I’ve read plenty of blog posts about how great they are and how they are so many people’s favorite potato.

So, I roasted some in the oven with some olive oil, salt, cracked Mexican pepper, and some dry herbs de Provence. Baked them for 20 minutes and broiled them for 3 minutes after then.

To be honest, I was disappointed. They tasted like many other potatoes that Ive eaten. I guess after all the hype, I was expecting something magical, and all I got was potato. Maybe I just need a better recipe.

Anyone have a great Fingerling Potato recipe that they’d like to share with me that can help salvage my view of this cute little potato?? Just leave me a comment!

My father-in-law requested Minestrone Soup this week, and today I finally had a chance to make some. The recipe was from one of my mother-in-law’s cookbooks called “Betty Crocker a Passion for Pasta”.

This recipe was super easy, quick, and absolutely delicious. I would have never thought that something thrown together so quickly could have such delicious flavor! I guess I’m one of those people that loves the process of cooking as much as eating the food. I did have to substitute a can of “small red beans” for kidney beans since they all contained sugar or corn syrup. Why the heck would anyone want to have beans with sugar on them when it’s just supposed to be plain beans. I could have made my own beans from dry beans, but they have so many cans of everything here, I’m trying to thin out their pantry a bit. Continue Reading »

My mom and I made these great mini corn bread muffins Monday in pre-preparation for Thanksgiving. We used the same recipe we always use*, but decided to put them in mini muffin forms for a simpler more hand-held variation from the big crumbly blocks of corn bread that we usually have. They tasted even better than I remember in mini form and it was soooooo hard to only eat one. Continue Reading »

While I am recuperating from the first Thanksgiving I have ever cooked for my family, I will leave you with this nice and simple post about mashed potatoes.

It’s not exactly a recipe, but more of a revelation.

I learned the other day that when you make mashed potatoes out of red new potatoes instead of the regular yellow potato variety that we usually use, the mashed potatoes come out snow white and are less starchy. I was really blown away by how nice and fluffy they came out! Continue Reading »

As I hinted to previously there was a Rib Cook-off on Saturday on my mom’s block. Last year there was a chili cook-off, so it looks like this may be a yearly tradition.

Continue Reading »

Now that I’m back in Texas I am indulging in as much Tex Mex as I can literally get my hands on! One of the first meals that we had when we got back were some homemade chicken fajitas that my mom grilled up using this recipe, some bell peppers and onions she grilled up, cheese, sour cream, salsa, and some avocado.

It never ceases to amaze me that even though I use the same exact recipes with the same ingredients that grilling makes it taste so much better.

I am back!

Between the jet lag and this (no longer) secret book I had been working on, I wasn’t able to post as much as I would have liked to. I have actually been working on this book for over 1 month. It’s a surprise (don’t worry, they don’t check out my blog – even though I wish they did) Christmas present for them.

It may seem like an odd topic for my first cookbook, but I will be bringing out some more cookbooks in the future that revolve more around our regular recipes. All the recipes in the book can be found in my blog, but have all been modified to be Orthodox vegan. For those of you who don’t know, many, but not all, Orthodox Christians fast multiple times a week and many days a year by eating “vegan”. But, not necessarily in the traditional sense. The only meat involved is seafood without back bones. They also don’t consume olive oil, wine, or hard liquor during their fasting times. Since my in-laws are new to their “new religion”, they tend to eat the same meatless meals over and over again, and I’m pretty sure they are bored out of their minds. So, I made this for them.

So, if you are a real vegan (no seafood either) there are only 3 recipes in the who book that have seafood in them, the rest are real vegan. You can ignore those pages, rips them out, draw on them, what ever you want.

I have it available for sale at Blurb for $34.95 (hardcover) and $26.95 (softcover).

For my European readers that’s €26,95 (hardcovere) and €20,95 (softcover).

If you are in Great Britain it’s 17.95GBP (hardcover) and 13.95GBP (softcover).

I have ordered my first book from them and will let you know what the quality is like as soon as I get it. Since it’s before the Christmas rush, I ordered it with the longest shipping. I will get it in about a week or a week in a half.

Ok, so I’m back. I’m still exhausted, but I can finally think again.

Right before I left Germany to fly to the US I made some vegetable pot pie. I basically needed a way to use up some extra pie crust that I had and didn’t want to freeze.

I was skeptical since meat always adds a good flavor to certain recipes, this being one of them. But, instead of using meat, I used some chicken bullion paste, which could be substituted for vegetarian chicken-flavored bullion to be made vegetarian. Continue Reading »

So, I arrived at my destination perfectly fine, but exhausted. It’s day number 3 and I am still just really tired from waking up at 4am because my baby doesn’t understand why it isn’t lunch time. 4am in Texas is 11am in Germany.

I have been taking pictures and have plenty to write for you, but I just need some sleep so I can think straight.  I will be back to you all really really soon with some great Texas home cooking!  Oh, and this weekend is a BBQ rib cook-off with the neighbors!