For the Love of Food

This is what the condiments on your table at a restaurant should be. I really miss this sort of stuff. No katchup, no mustard, no salt and pepper.

While being on vacation here, I just haven’t been able to get enough Mexican, Tex-Mex, or spicy food. Luckily, I have been able to make a lot of it myself because more restaurants put sugar in most of their food items. Mexican and Tex-Mex seem to be the “safest” bet for me since there’s really no need to put sugar on something so spicy you will barely taste it (my taste buds need re-conditioning to handle the spiciness again).

Happy Texas Christmas to you all! May all you meals be nice and spicy, your health be bounteous, and you have a nice stress-free year to come.

So, as many of you know, I was finally able to submit my event to Is My Blog Burning?. We got one heck of a response and now have 26 different blogs participating!! So, this time I cut up names, mixed them in a bowl, and pulled out partners. The partner list is at the bottom of the Taste & Create V – T&C November Round-Up post, but here it is again for all of you.

I know I have been out of commission for a while with a pretty bad cold (I’m still sick, but I at least have enough energy to type), but I’m back to blogging.
Partner List:

Hay That’s Good! & Annarasa

Eat the Right Stuff & Elly Says Opa

A Whisk and a Spoon & We [heart] Food
Sushi Day & The Skinny Gourmet

Rolling in Dough & Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska

The Cook Mobile & For the Love of Food

Finger Licking Food & Tart Reform

Bounteous Bites & Prettybaking in Israel

What’s Cooking & Cupcake Project

Dulcedo & Seduction Meals

Culinary Curiosity & Other People’s Food

A Scientist in the Kitchen & More Than Burnt Toast

Culinary Bazaar & A Veggie Venture

I am writing on behalf of Nicole.  Seems that she is a little under the weather.  She caught a cold from our son who got it from her brother, and was kind enough to pass it on to me.  With luck she’ll be blogging in a day or two.

Sincerely,

her Hubby

We drove back to my mom’s house the day before yesterday. It took a “few” hours longer than planned. My brother’s ride ditched him, so we had to take a 1.5 hour detour to pick him up and then wait 2 hours for him to finish his final, and then drive slower than normal through the thick fog.

But, when we got home my mom had this delicious buttery soft Stewed Beef waiting for us. Oh so good!

I will get the recipe, make it myself and then share with you sometime in the near future. Just wanted to make you all jealous

For my father-in-law’s birthday the other day I made a great meal of Baked Potato Skins, Blue Cheese and Bacon Burgers, a salad, and that sad looking chocolate cake that I blogged about in the previous blog entry.

So, where’s the bacon? Yeah… by the time I got to put my burger together, everyone had taken the bacon and none was left for me. Oh well, I should have planned better!

Where did I get this recipe? From my head. I had previously made burgers with melted blue cheese on them for my husband, but I find the cheese to potent and drips everywhere – it’s just a stinky mess. So, by combining it into the meat before forming it into patties. This was really great. It was cheesy, but not over powering.

I also chose to use ciabatta rolls from Whole Foods Market because they are made with malt instead of sugar or high fructose corn syrup. They are nothing like real ciabatta, but they were good, and that’s all that mattered. Continue Reading »

Yeah, this cake was a disaster.

I should know by now that I’m not the greatest with chocolate in the form of melting bars. I always wait too freaking long. I saw the chocolate starting to separate (turn grainy – the chocolate separates from the cocoa fat) and I ran for the bowl I needed that I should have had sitting out on the counter next too me. By the time I got back, it was done – damn. And, it was too late to go get more b/c I had to make the rest of dinner for my father-in-law’s birthday. It actually looked much much worse than in the photo. I “saved” it by by whipping it with some more cream, which ruined the stability.

I was also really annoyed that I just couldn’t find cocoa powder that was actually dark brown – like I have at home. I have dutch processed cocoa powder from Holland. So, I found some here, but it looks like they just mix in flour.

Anyways, it tasted great.

And then this happened:

To make it sugar free, I substituted fructose for sugar and fructose and water for the corn syrup.

So, here’s Martha’s recipe revised: Continue Reading »

The other day for lunch I was scavenging around my in-laws house trying to figure out what to have for lunch. I found a bag of frozen Hebrew National Hot Dogs (which have no sugar in them) that had been previously broiled, I found some homemade oatmeal bread, some mustard, dill pickle relish, and some french fry onions.

Voi la, a meal.

The nice honey-sweetened bread that my father-in-law had made, was a great complement to the savory hot dog and toppings. Continue Reading »

Taste&Create V was just announced, and now, 5 months from it’s begin, we are in IMBB (Is My Blog Burning).

I was actually checking on IMBB looking for the monthly DMBLGiT and came across a post asking for submissions on who would like to host DMBLGiT in 2008. Now, don’t go running off to send an email – I already did and 2008 is booked and the 2009 list will be made at the end of 2008.

So, when I emailed Andrew (who is in charge of DMBLGiT, but not the blogger behind IMBB), I was able to let him know about my problem submitting the event in th past, and he promptly posted my event!

I’m really excited because we’ve had so many people sign-up! It looks like it might be a big one!

Andrew has a plethora of blogs, but my favorite is SpittoonExtra where he blogs about food and photography. You should definitely check it out!

Since I can’t eat sugar, I usually have to make everything from scratch. But, being in the US has made this task even harder since there is corn syrup in everything. So, for Thanksgiving I made my own dressing, and it was a big hit. Continue Reading »

My aunt has this great mango salsa recipe that she brought over as an appetizer for Thanksgiving. Thank goodness she did b/c somewhere along the way we realized that the oven had turned off for an hour in the middle of cooking! So, her salsa held us over. Actually, I think that was breakfast for me since I hadn’t had any time to eat. Kind of ironic – food everywhere and no time to eat any

A while back I asked her for her recipe, but mangoes aren’t too great in Germany, so I never made it. While I’m in Texas I will definitely use this opportunity to make it for myself.

Ingredients:
1 Bell Pepper of every color (green, red, orange, yellow), chopped
1/2 a Red Onion, diced
Cilantro to taste, diced
Salt and Pepper to taste
the juice of 1 Lime
1/4 cup of Apple Cider Vinegar
1/4 cup of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
3 not so ripe Mangoes

Cut every thing in little pieces. Mix every thing together and let it stand for an hour in the refrigerator and you are done!

Makes about 4 Cups – trust me, it’s never enough!