For the Love of Food

Hi, yes, I am still here. Happy New Year everyone!

I have been quite a busy bee lately, and have neglected posting on the blog….I have had a few technical difficulties, but I am slowly ironing everything out!

Here are some great things that have happened in the end of November:
-I held a the most successful Thanksgiving party to date
-my year-long attempts at starting my own American bakery here in Germany are slowly coming to fruition (once things are up and running I will share more information with you guys)
-my baby (now toddler!) has learned to walk
-I am back doing organized sports – and loving it
-I got a new kitchen cabinet to store my daily-use dishes and glasses
-I got a lovely book case from France that’s about 100 years old
-I finally decided what colors to paint in the hallway and did it
-we had family over for the holidays – as well as a surprise visit from a friend we hadn’t seen in 8 years!
-my older son grew 2 shoe sizes in a week!!
-I was offered a part-time job – out of the blue!
-I learned how to knit!
-I got a sewing machine!
-I got an AWESOME new EIZO monitor for my computer
-we finally hooked up my computer for the first time in a year since we moved from our old home! Yes, I have been working on a borrowed laptop for that long! And I LOOOOVE my computer so much more now.
-and I was able to finalize plans to be on a relaxing vacation visiting family back home in the US for 6 1/2 weeks

And, here are the not so great things that have happened since last November:
-I injured myself climbing in the kitchen and have been walking around in crutches for a few weeks now..with no pain, but swelling…which has to go away before I sit in an airplane with 2 children for 12 hours! This really annoying injury has also caused me to stop doing my weekly routine of sports (about 5 to 7 hours a week) and has caused those pounds that I worked so hard to shed to come back.

Not too bad if you think of it…only 1 thing going wrong in 3 months and it’s wasn’t anything catastrophic! Heck, my new – and lovely – computer has been causing me more trouble! I haven’t been able to upload any new photos onto my Flickr account to blog for you guys – something screwy on my end. I will have to get my tech guy on it right away!

So, I hope you all bare with me for the time being. Blogging will resume as soon as my technical issues have been ironed out!

Oh, and you can find my biscuit recipe here!

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We really like pizza around here. Back when I only had one kid, we used to make pizza all the time. Now, I have a second child and not as much time during the day to make my favorite homemade pizza dough. So, when Foodbuzz asked us to put our own spin on pizza for Project Foodblog’s fifth challenge, I was happy to get baking again.

I decided to make a pizza that revolved around two of my favorite ingredients: chicken wings and ranch dressing, but not in a form that you would normally suspect.

Continue Reading »

Currently, we are obsessed with popovers!

A few weeks ago my husband discovered a recipe for pop overs somewhere while stumbling. To our delight, they are quick and easy to make and taste delicious!

So, plan this for breakfast tomorrow – it is the weekend and you should take the time to pamper yourself.

Originally, the recipe we are using calls for brushing the popovers with melted butter and then rolling them in a cinnamon-sugar combination, but we prefer them plain. They have a fascinating flavor to them. Almost like a crepe. I think they would taste wonderful filled with melted cheddar and ham, others we’ve made these for have thought of filling them with jelly or nutella.

The recipe makes 12, but you may want to make more …they go really really quickly! They are so good that we eat them burning hot, the baby wiggles with excitement when he sees them, and out little one starts jumping.

Here is our recipe: Continue Reading »

Well, it’s another beautiful day outside today. And, what is nicer than taking a stroll outside on a cool sunny morning? Taking the same walk with a homemade soft pretzel hand.

My husband and son made these one afternoon. And, what recipe did they use?? Can’t remember…. bummer huh?? They were really yummy too. Continue Reading »

I had my first scone in Ireland…I believer we were stopping for lunch somewhere on the northwest shore of Ireland. They were delicious – studded with little pieces of dried apricot and raisins.

So, for St. Patrick’s day, I want to share with you one of my favorite food-memories of my trip to Ireland a year and a half ago. 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 »

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 »

May 21st was Father’s Day in Germany. The traditional German way to celebrate Father’s day (as a father) is to grab your favorite beer mug, get together with all your buddies, and drink a keg a beer while hiking. It’s on a holiday here in Bavaria (Jesus’ ascension) so this starts as early as 8 or 9am.

We decided to celebrate it a bit more traditionally by having a breakfast in our garden. So, I prepared everything ahead of time and packed our portable electric burner and we had french toast there!

Unfortunately, I can’t find the original recipe that I adapted this from online. Here is my version: 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 »

These biscuits will warm you up on a cold wintry day – done in just 20 minutes from start to finish!

The other day I wanted to make biscuits…I had all the ingredients, but when I pulled out the butter I gasped – there wasn’t enough! What was I going to do. I searched my refrigerator for a substitute – no margarine, no hiding butter – then I came across the lard I had hiding in the back of my fridge.

I do have to say that while I thought that the last recipe of biscuits were the best I’d ever made, I’m going to have to recant that statement and put the best-ever label on these babies. These are perfect in flavor and in texture. You will never want to go to KFC again to get these of pop some out of a refrigerator can – these are so easy it is a sin to not make them homemade.

And, for those of you who don’t readily keep buttermilk around the house to make these spontaneously, you can easily substitute with equal amounts of milk and 1 teaspoon of white vinegar.

Without further adieu: Continue Reading »