For the Love of Food

As promised, I will be re-posting the recipes from my luxurious Iraqi dinner party. Today I am starting with the pomegranate martinis we served before the first course.

I had never had a martini before this, and to be honest, I’m not sure I will have one after. They are just waaaayyyy to strong for me. I’m a margarita sort of girl. But, I like to try new things, and if you do too, then you should at least try this at least once.

Just a warning – this makes enough for 6 drinks. And, the original recipe can be found here. Please note that mine is much darker than theirs, but I was using jarred syrup as opposed to fresh made. Continue Reading »

Voting is now open!  Please cast your vote for me here. 

Now, I have hosted many parties in my short life: impromptu dinner parties, lunch parties, brunch parties, garden parties, winter solstice parties, children’s birthday parties, Thanksgiving parties…I could go on for quite a while.  But, I’ve never hosted a luxurious dinner party.  So, when Foodbuzz challenged us to host a luxurious dinner party I hit the web to get ideas on how to host one.

To my utter surprise, there is not a lot of information out there on how to host a luxurious dinner party – needless to say a small intimate dinner party.  There is plenty of information on how to throw huge and elegant wedding bashes, but since I cannot seat 100+ in my home, I had to turn to other sources.

I quickly emailed the two people I knew would have detailed thoughts as to what a luxurious dinner party would entail.  Could I hold it in my home since my dining table is in my kitchen?  Would I need a server?  These are just some of the questions I had.  Surprisingly – well, maybe not – I got quite different answers from both sources, but good advice none the less.

So, what do you need to put together a luxurious dinner party?? Continue Reading »

A year and a half ago I found myself in one of the greenest countries I’ve ever visited. And, this week is all about the Irish and their patron Saint: St. Patrick.

Being someone who pays quite a lot of attention to food, while in Ireland I noticed that food in Ireland is predominantly NOT green. Rich browns, oranges, and yellows adorn most plates nation-wide. And, especially in pubs, the leafy green salads that many of us are used to are few and far between – and sometimes non-existent.

So, what does a typical Irish meal consist of? Potatoes, meat, cooked vegetables such as carrots, mushrooms, broccoli, and cauliflower, and more potatoes…they sure do like their potatoes. I remember once when we stopped for lunch at a cantina and my husband was served two types of potatoes with his spaghetti!

Bread is also an integral part of daily life on the Emerald Isle. They have everything from scones to brown bread to soda bread. While we were staying at Stanley House in Schull, we fell in love with Mrs. Brosnan’s fabulous homemade brown bread. So much so that I asked for the recipe and have been waiting for a while now to try it out. But, since all my baking supplies are backed away in boxes, it may just have to wait for next St. Patrick’s day. Continue Reading »

About a year ago our friends from Hempe Kommunikations Deisgns invited us over for a delicious traditional Franconian meal of pork roast and potato dumplings.  I’m not sure whose idea it originally was, but our friends ended up taking step-by-step photos of the process and giving me the recipe.  It was not only a fantastically delicious meal, but it seemed simple enough for me to reproduce.

So, after some practice, I thought it would be great to use my opportunity to through another Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24 event and show my friends how well I have learned their recipe myself.  And, since it’s the right time of year, I decided it was time to break out the wooden Spekulatius boards and make some spiced cookies.

I was so excited when I pulled the pork roast out of the oven and saw the look on my friend’s face..and hear the words that came out of her mouth: look at the crust, I don’t think we’ve ever had a crust like that on any of our roasts!

And, as many cooks, what do I like more than cooking and eating my own creations?? : when people love my food.

The roast was a huge hit – crunchy, juicy, perfectly flavored – same with all the side dishes.  The cookies..well, they were ok, nothing to talk over…a shame.  But, we will keep trying until we get the perfect recipe.  After the fact I was doing some things and came to the realization that I used all local products to produce this delicious meal – wines and beers as well.

Ok, bellow I will leave you with 3 great recipes (pork roast, potato dumplings, and spekulatius cookies) all with step-by-step pictures which makes this a long post.

Between all the delicious Franconian wine, beers, delicious food, and conversation I never ended up taking any pictures of my guests enjoying the meal!  Continue Reading »

Before I left on my trip to the US, my in-laws visited us here in Germany and we took a 3 days trip to the Czech Republic. We spent 2 days in Prague and a day in Pilsen – the birth place of the pilsner beer.

I really really enjoy Prague every time I go, it’s just so very beautiful. And, I recommend if you ever have the chance to go that you take it.

Bellow I will share with you some of the many pictures that I took while in Prague and on our tour of the Pilsner Urquell brewery. Enjoy! Continue Reading »

A while back I came across a recipe on Use Real Butter for some good-looking fish tacos. Now, I’m not a big fan of fried fish – or fried anything for that matter (too messy), but my mom never minds frying something for us. So, when I was visiting her on our trip to the US, we took the opportunity to make this together.

I can’t remember where I got the recipe for the white sauce that we used, or if i just made it up as I thought it should taste, but if you do a Google search for “fish taco white sauce recipe“, you’ll have plenty of recipes to choose from.

My mom ended up frying more fish than we could eat in tacos that day, so she froze the leftovers and said that they defrosted very nicely and remained crispy if you cooked them in the toaster oven. So, if you like to have fried fish, but don’t like to fry all the time, it would be a good idea to make a large batch of these and freeze them for later use. Continue Reading »

Happy 2009 everyone!

I decided to analyze my blog from January 2008 – December 2008 to see what you like.

Why?
I want to see more of you around my blog more often. And, that means finding out what you like.

How?
I looked at all my posts and saw what you commented most on and I learned quite a lot.

What? Continue Reading »

So, I am back, kind of. I finally have a tiny bit of time to share with my blog, and I really want to address this contest.

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who participated! And, thank you for your patience for waiting until now for my answer. It has been a rough last 3 weeks – I have a cold again – but I am back to my blog until Thursday when I go on vacation to Ireland! I am very excited!

So…before I tell you who the winner is, I’d like to tell you what I thought about all 39 suggestions that came in: Continue Reading »

The heart made of little bubbles truly formed on its own!

I don’t know if I ever mentioned in any of my posts from my trip to DC in August, but the friends we visited had so many unread and unwanted Bon Appetit magazines that they offered them to me when they so how giddy I got at the site of so much food porn.

I went through about 3 years worth of magazines over a 10 day period and tore out anything that interested me. I have started putting pages in sleeves at home and into folders ordered by season. I mean..there’s no need to look for summer recipes in the dead of winter when I won’t be able to find half the ingredients…

I have already started trying some recipes, and, so far, I am quite pleased.

This recipe for Aqua Pearl comes from the Bon Appetit issue of May 2006. This is what inspired me to make this, currently, unnamed drink.

Since I like drinking blue drinks, my husband was kind enough to add a little extra blue curacao – hence the blue at the bottom.

Continue Reading »

I am a very visual eater/drinker.

I like pretty food…as do most of you. And, I will rarely try a recipe I have never seen a picture of before – unless it’s been served to me and I know the exact final product.

So, when I told my husband that I loved blue drinks, he came up with the perfect tropical-looking drink for me. It looks like the ocean, a swimming pool, a blue sky, Spring, an Summer all at once. Although the floating crushed ice in it reminds me of floating icebergs (and the Titanic), it reminds me more of lapping waves in a tropical coral reef (yes…Fall is beginning and my mind needs to travel to a sunny tropical location).

This is a very simple drink – two ingredients – 3 if you count the ice.

But, it has no name. I couldn’t find an exact recipe online, but I didn’t scour the inernets for hours looking either. If the drink already exists in the exact recipe bellow – who cares, we will have fun anyways.

So, on to the CONTEST: I would like some help naming this drink.

What you need to do: Leave a comment bellow with a drink name by Sunday, September 14th. Continue Reading »