For the Love of Food

The other day I blogged about a great new sushi rice recipe that I found on VideoJug. I decided to go ahead and give it a second try and make some exciting sushi with some new ingredients.

Yesterday I went walking through a store that I had never been to before and I found lots of new ingredients to play with…so I brought home 4 new ingredients to try out in sushi:
-raw salmon
-chive sprouts
-red beet sprouts
-wanton-wrapped shrimp

I am not going to reproduce the sushi rice recipe here because it’s perfectly written up in text form and has a great video here on VideoJug. Instead, I will tell you all the combinations I came up with and what I thought of them.

Side Dishes: How To Make Sushi Rice

Each recipe makes 1 roll: Continue Reading »

Hello to all my fellow Taste&Create blogger and any of you who are interested in participating between May 2009 and September of 2009.

I am going on a long “vacation” from Taste&Create, but I will be back and be running the event again starting October 1st, 2009.

Why? Well, I’m having a baby Consider this pre-maternity leave.

While my due-date is end of August/beginning of September, I will have lots of family starting to visit us here in Germany as of mid May, and my family and I will then be taking a long 5 week vacation to the US before the baby comes. Once we return in mind July there will be a lot of lose ends to tie-up before the baby arrives.

Have no fear, my great blogger friend Min from The Bad Girl’s Kitchen will be hosting Taste&Create and taking care of all of you.

Those of you who have already signed-up for May with me, I have forwarded your sign-ups to her. Those of you who have not yet signed up, sign-up for May ends May 8th, please email Min at: cowgirlmin07 [at] gmail [dot] com .

Entries will still be submitted and posted on the Taste&Create website, so the only thing that has changed is who you email to sign-up.

If anyone has any questions, I will, of course, be available via email, although it may take me a few days to answer you since I will be getting used to my new life with a two-year-old and a new baby.

For those of you who are curious:
Is it a boy or girl?
I have no idea…the baby only lets us see his/her back during ultrasounds. So, it’s still a surprise. There’s only more ultra sound in mid June, and if we don’t see anything then, well, then it will just stay a surprise.

I wish you all happy blogging and cooking thoughout the summer months.

Many cheers,

Nicole

Well, I am quite pleased to say that our potluck was a huge success.  Not only did we had over 30 people show up for dinner, but we had many people show-up in the morning to help with our garden Spring Cleaning event.  And, after many hours of hard work in the garden and in front of the grill, we were all ready to sit down and share a nice large meal together.

The buffet was full and everything was picked away to the last piece!  The chocolate-coated fruit was a huge hit with the children and it was gone within minutes!

The whole event was such a great success and made all our gardeners so happy that they asked what we had to do to have another event like this.  I got so many compliments on organizing the event and thanks to our “sponsor” – Foodbuzz – for making this possible.  So…we are thinking and hopefully next month we will come-up with something new and exciting for Foodbuzz 24,24,24 again.

See recipes bellow: Continue Reading »

For this month’s Taste&Create I was partnered with Natalie from Perrys’ Plate. I’m really excited to have met Natalie through her blog because it seems we have a few things in common and seem to have similar culinary taste.

I found quite a few recipes that I wanted to make from her site, but because of time constraints I decided on making her Roasted Eggplant and Caramelized Onion Pizza. Continue Reading »

Yes, I am still alive.

Last week I had to have my camera’s sensor professional cleaned because of a piece of dirt that kept showing up in every picture. €50 and a week later, I have my camera back from Nikon.

This weekend I ended up getting sick with a stomach virus and a bladder infection…which sucks even more when your pregnant because not only is the baby pressing down on your bladder but up on your intestines and stomach as well. I am 80% better now. Of course, I was out of commission for 4 days and I have quite a lot of cleaning to do this week to make this place look normal again!

Many of you have asked if I know if I’m having a boy or a girl yet….no I don’t. Last ultrasound the baby gave us his/her back the whole time. I have one last ultrasound in June and if we don’t find anything out then, then there will be a big surprise in September.

Ok…on to food…

A few weeks ago I started doing to research on how to better make sushi rice. Mine just kept falling apart. Of course, I also kept cutting corners with my recipe and that didn’t help, but I found another fantastic recipe (with video) on VideoJug and I wanted to share it with you. I have never made such perfect sushi rice before. There is also a text version bellow the video which I found quite helpful.

Happy sushi making!

Side Dishes: How To Make Sushi Rice

Welcome to Taste&Create hosted by me at For the Love of Food. I hope you are all having a nice Easter.  I am off enjoying my long weekend with the family and some good friends in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps.

Just a reminder:
-the rules can be found here.
-please do not email me your submission, go to the Taste&Create website, register/sign-in and submit your entry there by the 24th of April.

Sign-ups for May’s Taste&Create will end, as usual, on May 8th.

Here is this month’s partner list: Continue Reading »

Many of you may be familiar with a previous post of mine featuring my homemade McDonald’s-style chicken nuggets. Well, it was a big hit, and I thought I’d post a tweaked version of the recipe for those whole enjoy changing it up a bit! Continue Reading »

Now that Easter is just around the corner, I thought I’d share one of my favorite Easter brunch recipes with you. My mom has been making this quiche for quite a few years now. Originally, it’s a Pillsbury recipe.

It’s great served warm or at room temperature. I’ve even made it the day before and taken it out of the refrigerator a few hours before lunch to warm up. It’s a very flexible dish. Continue Reading »

I one day somehow stumbled upon some fantastic-looking blueberry-filled muffins recipe on Mommy? I’m Hungry! and I knew i had to give it a try.

They had the right sweetness and blueberry levels. I used frozen blueberries since fresh ones aren’t in season yet…they would have been even better with fresh ones. However, I found them overly moist because of the buttermilk – even to the point that they would stick to the front of my teeth while I was trying to eat one…and who wants to walk around with blueberry on there teeth all day???

Anyways, they’re worth a second try, and I’m just waiting for that late summer day when I can make these with fresh blueberries and substitute the buttermilk for regular milk to see if that reduces the moisture content.

I don’t remember what happened that I wasn’t able to continue with the baking process, but thanks to my husband, he scoped them into the muffin tins and kept an eye on them while they baked. Continue Reading »

My father-in-law has been taking cooking classes at Williams-Sonoma for a few months now. One day they had a class on the different types of vanilla beans. It doesn’t really surprise me that there are different kinds, but I had never put much thought into it. They all have their uniqueness and ways to be cooked or processed into the perfect dish.

He then told me how they had fun mixing the vanilla bean paste (what you scrape out of the inside of a vanilla bean) and mixing it into whipped cream to give it texture and dimension.

This sounded like it was worth a try…especially since I have had a vanilla bean sitting in my spice drawer for a year now. I wish I had had a fresh one b/c there was not much flavor in it and I had to actually add some vanilla extract for flavor.

It makes for a pretty topping on anything you would usually put whipped cream on…like mango sorbet or pumpkin custard!

Ingredients:
200 grams Whipping Cream
2 Tablespoons Powdered Sugar
the Paste of 1 Vanilla Bean
1/4 teaspoon Vanilla Extract (if you have a low-flavor vanilla bean)

Directions:
In a tall container, whip the cream until soft peaks form. Add the powdered sugar and vanilla bean paste. whisk in slowly and then increase speed to high to whip to stiff peaks. Flavor with vanilla extract if necessary.

Makes 2 Cups.