For the Love of Food

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 »

As promised yesterday…

This is a really cool gift my husband gave to me for my birthday. Three types of popsicle holders.

The yellow ones are traditional.

The blue ones are star shaped with an insert to make room for a second color/flavor.

And, the red ones are rocket ships with the same insert at the stars.

They work really well, and my almost 2 year old son is now in love with posilces.  These popsicles are made with 2 types of juice – a dark yellow/orange colored one and a red one – both not natural juices because we wanted really intense color.

After more trial and error we have found that pineapple juice not from concentrate works really well color wise for a dark yellow orange.  And, unlike many other juices, dose not end up becoming “watery” in flavor after being frozen like, say, apple juice.  And, for red, cranberry juice where you can mix a no sugar added cranberry concentrate with less water than is called for will give you a wonderfully intese color and tangy flavor.

Tomorrow: A tour of my (finally) newly renovated kitchen!!

I know that coffee flavored ice tea is not something you hear of everyday, and it’s probably not what you’re envisioning either.

This is, yet again, another recipe I am sharing with you from the month of September…back when it was warmer.

Back in August when we were in DC for a business trip with my husband, I decided to walk into Starbucks (for maybe the third time in my life) and by a Frappuccino for the first time – decaf and with chocolate flavor.

Being as hot as it was, and having just walked about 7 miles (for fun – yes) from the DC zoo south to Georgetown, we were sweating. I let my son taste this nice cold drink and, let’s just say, I never got it back. What can I say, it’s the 1/4th Colombian in him that loves coffee flavored things. Still…I will not let him drink caffeinated beverages until he is older.

So, to help beat the heat one warm September day, I decided I wanted to make a sort of Frappuccino – it seems like a simple enough drink to make, and it was. I used a tea that I have that actually tastes like coffee. It is made from roasted grains and fruits. So, I did not flavor the traditional American Iced Tea, but rather, I have a tea that tastes like coffee and I “iced” it. Then, I topped it with some homemade whipped cream. It tastes best if you stir in the whipped cream to your drink before you drink it all!

I imagine that you could also use this recipe (with or without cocoa powder) to make other great frozen tea drinks. 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 »

Homemade Sports Drink, originally uploaded by my_amii.

Hi everyone, I’m back again. My stomach flu took a turn for the worse after being better for a day in a half. But, all is well again and I can finally eat.

I was pretty dehydrated with the lose of fluids, so my husband made a great copycat Gatorade recipe that he found (but cannot remember where he found it). All I know is that it really helped and tasted good.

Tomorrow I will share with you the first “meal” I had after not eating for a whole week…

Continue Reading »

The other day the nice people over at Buy Absinthe Alcohol contacted me and asked if I would write a few words for them. After some consideration, and a lot of haggling, I decided to take one the task.

I’d tasted absinthe way way back when (5 years ago??) and remember not really liking it – I’m just not crazy about anise flavored drinks. But, I do enjoy anise flavored baked goods – not daily, but at least once a year is ok.

Continue Reading »

Since I’m being all reminiscent about my time in France (I was in Lyon, BTW), I’d like to introduce you to the first “beer” I ever had.

I know, I know, French beer as my first it’s some sort of German sin – I was not disappointed. Continue Reading »

For the past 2 months we have been on a sparkling wine-making frenzy. At first we just made a small 3 liter batch to see if it would work…and it did…so the next batch was 5 liters….and the one after that was 12 liters…ok, so we didn’t drink it all by ourselves…was served it at my birthday party and brought some to friends’ places when we were invited over. We’re making another batch again. This time it’s 5 liters.

There are only 3 ingredients required: apple juice, champagne yeast, and sugar (or fructose). (see recipe bellow)

We have tried different varieties of apple juice: “conventional” 100% apple juice and direct press (unfiltered) organic apple juice. There is actually a significant difference between the 2. The conventional apple juice will give you a clear, dry, and light flavor, while the direct press juice will give you a hardy, “typical” American cider (with fizz added). It is hard to chose which one I liked more. We did a taste test to compare them side by side, but still, they are really both excellent.

We also made a quick low alcohol version (see recipe bellow) that took 2 days to make. The fizzy-ness was really great (the same as with other champagnes/sparkling wines), but there was a much sweeter apple juice flavor there. We tried it with the direct press juice, and tonight I’ll try it with a conventional apple juice. I didn’t enjoy the sweetness of it b/c I’m generally not a big apple juice fan. That’s why I enjoy sparkling apple wine so much b/c it has the great apple flavor without the overwhelming sweetness of apple juice. Continue Reading »