For the Love of Food

This recipe takes me back to my childhood. The sweet smells that fill my kitchen while cooking this just brings a smile to my face. I find that when I am pregnant I am more homesick for the foods that I grew up with, especially desserts…which I would otherwise rarely eat.

There are plenty of ways to make rice pudding, but the best way is never the quick way…ever. This dish requires time – you will need about 1 hour to prepare it – and you will have to stir it often, so you won’t be able to leave the kitchen.

There are 2 “secret” ingredients that this recipe cannot do without: cinnamon sticks and lime peel. Save the ground cinnamon for sprinkling on afterwards, the sticks will give them a much deeper flavor and the lime peel gives it a special hint of the tropics.  Always remember that “time and lime make it fine”.

I believe this recipe was passed down to my mother from my father’s uncle’s mother who is Cuban. Continue Reading »

I one day somehow stumbled upon some fantastic-looking blueberry-filled muffins recipe on Mommy? I’m Hungry! and I knew i had to give it a try.

They had the right sweetness and blueberry levels. I used frozen blueberries since fresh ones aren’t in season yet…they would have been even better with fresh ones. However, I found them overly moist because of the buttermilk – even to the point that they would stick to the front of my teeth while I was trying to eat one…and who wants to walk around with blueberry on there teeth all day???

Anyways, they’re worth a second try, and I’m just waiting for that late summer day when I can make these with fresh blueberries and substitute the buttermilk for regular milk to see if that reduces the moisture content.

I don’t remember what happened that I wasn’t able to continue with the baking process, but thanks to my husband, he scoped them into the muffin tins and kept an eye on them while they baked. Continue Reading »

Bake in November 2008 I made Cupcake Project’s Ferrero Rocher Cupcakes for the Taste&Create event that I host.  We all thought they were fantastic and I knew then that I had found an excellent cake base for my son’s birthday cake.

Today my son turned 2 years old!  I am not only happy that we have come to the two year mark, but I am happy that I finally had enough energy to make my son a homemade birthday cake.  Being able to make things in my kitchen again brings joy to my heart.

So, the cake is the same cake base from the Ferrero Rocher cupcakes, but I used a more traditional chocolate frosting instead of the hazelnut-laden Nutella frosting.  I found the Chocolate Frosting from Cupcake Bakeshop very easy to make and fulfilling.

Recipes bellow: 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 »

This is a post/recipe I am writing specifically for my friend who runs a great website called Natrüulich Fürth. She asked me for a pumpkin recipe with picture quite a long time ago, but after a long search, I found nothing worth sharing.

I wanted to make something easy, natural, and for the seasons of Fall/Winter. The first thins that came to mind was pumpkin pie, but in the spirit of keeping the recipe simple, I opted to leave out the pie crust and call it a custard. It’s really just a shell-less pie! Continue Reading »

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 »

It has been quite a while since I made this – almost 2 months, actually! But, as my husband makes fun of me for, if it was good, I remember it – even if it was a meal I at 24 years ago. Food is a very memorable part of my life.

This ice cream left a very big impression on me. It was creamy and very flavorful – and really really easy to make. It did have a slight “sour” flavor to it due to the sour cream in it, but it’s something I can get used to.

I can’t wait until Spring/Summer rolls around again so I can make this – these would make great popsicles too!

I was inspired by the absolutely beautiful ice cream pictures of this recipe on My Feasts. Continue Reading »

Some of you may remember these delicious chicken wings I made back in April of this year:

I used a dry rub that I came across for ribs on the chicken wings, and they were fabulous – with or without the added BBQ sauce at the end.

Well, this time I was in the mood for some of the spicy wings that I like to make with just some sambal ölek past and butter, so I thought I’d try a combination of the two.

They were a really big hit. Sweet and spicy – and not too much of either. Just right. Continue Reading »

The other day I happened upon a blog post about “TCHO Beta Stuffed Cookies” – chocolate chip cookies with a sort of of chocolate filling sandwiched in between. They looked really good.

The cookie recipe was pretty simple, and the batch looked like it would be small so I wouldn’t be eating a large batch of cookies in one or two days. You know…it’s just so hard with them sitting their calling your name and saying “eat me…eat me”.

I did tweak the recipe a bit by changing out some of the ingredients and adding walnut – I LOVE walnuts in cookies. But, this time I think they may have slowed the baking process of the center of the cookies. Next time, and oh yes there will be many more next times, I will try it without walnuts to see if it helps.

As some of your may know, I have not been able to eat sugar (table sugar or dextrose) in the past – it’s a long story, and if you want to know, email me and I’ll be happy to tell it again. Anyways, I am now breastfeeding much less than before and I seem to be able to handle sugar in small quantities. The first time I realized this I thought I was “cured” and got so excited I made chocolate chip cookies with real chocolate chips, fructose (no table sugar on hand), and brown sugar. Brown sugar is still a really big no-no and caused quite a bit of pain. So, this time I decided to go with all my usual substitutions, but use the real chocolate chips instead of the malt-sweetened ones that I bring over from the US.

I wouldn’t say that the sugar in the chocolate chips has no effect on me – there is some pain. But, nothing like before. And, definitely tolerable every once in a while. And, definitely worth using in these delicious cookies. The batter was very light and fluffy, but it made a nice moist cookie. I will never make Nestel Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies again. This is my new chocolate chip cookie!

The original recipe can be found here. This is my version: Continue Reading »