For the Love of Food

All that talk of making beer yesterday made me hungry! And, nothing like some delicious southern food to satisfy our hunger – I tend to miss being home in the summer and this really hits the spot.

My husband put this wonderful meal together for us last week.  He found the hush puppies recipe here – we tweaked it a bit.  I did the cocktail sauce.  And, I am no lover of cocktail sauce, but I blew myself away with this sauce that I put together for my boys so much so that I ended up consuming half of it myself!

After the jump, you’ll find all three recipes: Continue Reading »

As I hinted at in the last post, my father-in-law visits cooking classes at his local Williams-Sonoma that they offer for free on Sundays to anyone who wishes to attend.

While were were visiting, my husband and I had the opportunity to visit a class with him in north Austin.

I found the set-up quite nice. They had a large angled mirror on the ceiling so that we could see what they were cooking. We were able to taste-test everything and it was quite tasty. I was, however, disappointed that they were using mainly ingredients that you could only buy in their stores – like their roasted version of Ro-Tel for $12!!!

My father-in-law mentioned that they have different cooks for the different classes, and that this lady is the one who plugs their products. Other cooks cook from scratch and give tips as to where the correct ingredients can be found at other locations around town.

So, what did we eat while we were there?? Continue Reading »

While I was on vacation in the US and visiting my in-laws, my father-in-law made us some stuffed pancakes that he learned how to make at his weekly Williams-Sonoma cooking classes.

The original recipe calls for stuffing them with blueberries, but he stuffed them with a variety of items. We had some stuffed with homemade Italian sausage, some with maraschino cherries, some with Nutella, other with pineapple, and blueberries. All-in-all my favorite were the ones with the Italian sausage in the middle because I enjoyed the sweet/savory combination.

That being said, I found that the pancakes took quite a while to make/cook and by the time they were all done, we were all starving and the pancakes were cold. You also need the special Williams-Sonoma mini round pancake pan to make them.

The recipe can be found here on Williams-Sonoma’s website.

Bellow are pictures of the process: Continue Reading »

I thought I’d share some nice summer-time eye candy with you while I spend a few days processing the tons of photos I took while on my vacation.

I had a really great time, but I am happy to be back home where the temperature is mild and the fruit tastes like, well, fruit!

And, that’s the story I want to tell you… Continue Reading »

Right before our trip to the US we canned a whole bunch of tomatoes from our garden (a post about that will follow eventually). We had a few ingredients left over that we needed to preserve since everyone else we knew was also going on vacation at the same time.

We decided to make a sort of pico de gallo. Now that it has a had a few weeks to set and soak in the flavors, we opened a jar to have with some breakfast tacos.

It was lacking in flavor. The lemon juice flavor was gone and it needs much more salt to taste. Everything also should have been diced instead of chopped. What can I say…after a whole day of canning, we were lazy.

What I did end up making was a great pre-salsa. This would be the great foundations of a salsa. I would pulse this in the food processor a few times. Then, just add some more tomato, cilantro, lime juice, salt, and some seasonings. Continue Reading »

The other day I came across a really really good-looking recipe for “San Marzano “Quick” Salsa” on Bucky’s Barbecue and Bread blog. And, just by looking at the photos, I knew it would not only be a fantastic salsa, but the salsa that I have been trying to reproduce for the past 5 years.

I changed-up the recipe a bit to fit the ingredients that are available to me here in Germany. This salsa is not only really easy to make, but tastes just like my favorite Chili’s salsa that are served with Chili’s “BOTTOMLESS TOSTADA CHIPS™”. Most of the people who tried this salsa last weekend were surprised that I had not used fresh, but rather, canned tomatoes. Continue Reading »

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 »

I love Caribbean food. To be honest, I think most of the food I grew up eating in Miami was Caribbean in some way or another.

My husband and I took our honeymoon in Belize. Many people don’t know about this wonderful little English-speaking country just south of Mexico. We quickly fell in love with the relaxed atmosphere, the people, and the fantastic food.

One of my favorite dishes that I had the pleasure of eating while I was there was shrimp and conch ceviche. Unfortunately, in Germany conch is no where to be found. My goodness…it’s hard enough just finding decent tortilla chips..needless to say a little sea critter!

So, when I saw Meeta’s Monthly Mingle this month with the theme of Caribbean Cooking I was really excited. I looked through all my recipes. I have tons of Cuban recipes and some jerk recipes I’ve been meaning to try out. But, I settled on shrimp ceviche mostly because of the (lack-of) time factor. Ceviche is quick and easy. It’s ready in 20 minutes. You can’t really beat that.

Most of the time it is served as a snack or an appetizer, but I often enjoy it as a light meal with some tortilla chips. Continue Reading »

Even in the bitter cold months of winter, I sometimes enjoy eating cold food. This Mexican 6 layer dip is a favorite of mine because it’s really quick, flavorful, and there’s little clean-up involved.

Instead of using traditional salsa, I went ahead and used some homemade Rotel that I made last summer. For the life of me I can’t find the recipe I used and it seems I never posted it on my blog! It does give the dip a much more balanced flavor than regular salsa, so you decide. And, hopefully this summer I will have a recipe for you for some homemade Rotel.

Continue Reading »

The week before the Super Bowl I was craving chicken wings so I set out to look for a recipe to satisfy my craving but not return me to abdominal distress after having been sick for 4 weeks.

In my search I came across a few recipes that I melded together to come up with this delicious baked recipe for ranch chicken wings. My largest “problem” with most of the recipes I came across was that they all called for dry ranch dressing powder. Well I don’t have access to “food” like that, and even if I did, we all know that homemade tastes better. I found everything in my spice drawer that I needed without having to plan a trip to the grocery store! Continue Reading »