For the Love of Food

Now, while I’m not a big fan of sweet salad dressing, I am a BIG fan of “special sauce” on my burgers. More specifically, the kind that mimics the Big Mac sauce from McDonalds.

This is a very very close, delicious, and healthier alternative to what you will find on a big mac. I counted 19 ingredients in McDonald’s Big Mac Special Sauce and at least 5 of those ingredients are not natural, such as stabilizers and preservatives. No thank you!

It’s really quite quick to make yourself, and not only will it be a great complement to your next burger, but it is a big hit around here as a tartar sauce replacement for fish! Continue Reading »

When I was visiting my mom in the US we took the opportunity to give my brother a belated birthday party. He loves cookie cakes, so my mom decided to try to make her own.
I think when I was younger one of these would cost about $30 at the mall, but for a fraction of the price, you can make it at home. My mom said she used the Nestle tollhouse recipe for bars, and we used the cream cheese frosting that she used on my baby shower cake.
She made the cookie cake on a round pizza stone that she had, but you can make this on any round pizza pan or into any other shape: rectangular, square, heart…etc.
All-in-all everyone loved it and it was hard to not keep sneaking pieces later on! Continue Reading »

Friday I posted about a copycat Tony Roma’s baby back ribs recipe that I tried out. Bellow is the recipe with the bbq sauce that they recommended making. I found it way way to tangy and vinegary. However, this may be because the homemade ketchup that I made this time around was also more tangy than usual…and the fact that I only had light corn syrup and not the dark corn syrup called for.

Either way..my husband loved it. I thought it was good, but it was so tangy that my mouth was burning!

The cooking method for these ribs is really fantastic and quite simple and created delicious succulent fall-off-the bone ribs. You will need 2 days to make this recipe, so prepare accordingly! Continue Reading »

Baby-back ribs are not very popular in Germany – ribs in general are considered a sort of waste product. So, they are cheap. I can get a kilogram of spare or baby-back ribs for €3,00 (about US$4.17). So, when we need a cost-effective meal that contains meat, ribs are the way to go for us.

The other day I came across a copycat recipe for Tony Roma’s baby-back ribs. The recipe included a sauce, which was good (see next week’s Monday post), but definitely did not taste anything like Tony Roma’s bbq sauce. I did however, split the rib recipe in half to try out my new sweet and smoky homemade bbq sauce, and, to my surprise, I had recreated Tony Roma’s bbq sauce!

The cooking method for these ribs is really fantastic and quite simple and created delicious succulent fall-off-the bone ribs. You will need 2 days to make this recipe, so prepare accordingly! Continue Reading »

I dream of going back to Miami one day. But, not for the warm weather, sandy beaches, or delicious Cuban food. I dream of going back to my favorite restaurant: Shorty’s Bar-B-Q. I just salivate thinking of this place. They have the most heavenly tangy (not sweet) meaty bbq sauce and the most buttery corn I have ever eaten. My dream dish: an open-faced roast beef sandwich with a side of fries all covered in an entire jar of their bbq sauce that is served in glass parmesan cheese jars and a side of corn on the cob drenched in butter.

Next year will be my 10-year high school reunion, and even though I didn’t get to graduate from that high school because we moved to Texas, I would like to go back and see all my old friends…it’s been 11 years! So, if I do get the opportunity, this restaurant will not only be my first stop, but my second, third, fourth, and fifth…you get the point. And, i will probably bring a few jars of the good stuff home with me too!

So, in an attempt to recreate Shorty’s delicious buttery corn on the cob, I came-up with this recipe. It is a very simple recipe, but still needs a lot of tweaking before it is comparable to the butter-infused cobs that you can get at Shorty’s. 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 »

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 »

I am sorry to say that I haven’t cooked anything for 3 weeks!! We have all been sick with either the stomach flu or a cold. In my case I got the stomach flu twice with a cold in between.  Today I have a massive headache like I haven’t had in 2 years….

Because of that I have no recipes to share with you from the past weeks, but for those of you suffering from a nasty stomach bug, I have just the drink for you! Homemade Gatorade.  This is a re-post from June 2008 from my blog.  The recipe is bellow.

It’s not possible for me to buy Gatorade where I live in Germany. I can find Powerade, but it’s expensive. So, we make our own with some flavor packets that we picked up when we were in the US. They are very inexpensive and take up very little storage space. They also come in a wide assortment of flavors. My favorite is grape because it reminds me of the grape soda I used to get to drink, although rarely, as a child.

Anyways, we’ve been living off of our homemade Gatorade, crackers, pretzel sticks, and bland potatoes for the last three weeks.

I am still not feeling 100%, so I may be posting sporadically for the next few weeks. And, thank you in advance for understanding!

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 »

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 »