For the Love of Food

I am always amazed at the hidden treasures that can be found in my local arts&crafts store. It’s small…I mean really small – and packed to the brim with every imaginable supply one could possibly need to make any craft.

Bastel Paradis is run by 2 ladies who, when they aren’t moving around seasonal inventory and helping customers find just the perfect supply, are crafting right next to the cash register.

A few weeks before Christmas I walked in and asked for some advise on what I could make my mom for Christmas. The owner quickly pulled out a little angel and told me it was easy and would be great. I ended up leaving the store with enough supplies to make 2 angels, 1 big picture ornament, and 8 smaller ornaments (will post these later). And, a few days later I ended up coming back for more supplies to make more angels and more ornaments!

I used one of the angels I made to top off my Christmas tree. We decided to have a completely homemade tree this year so that our son could enjoy touching all the ornaments.

I also handed out some other angels (see tomorrow’s post) to friends for Christmas. However, the owner of the craft store told me that these were originally meant to be napkins that you place at the table with a chocolate in the center for your guests to enjoy after dinner – so these are perfect for Christmas, New Years, and Halloween (if you leave out the wings to make ghosts).

What you will need: Continue Reading »

I just wanted to go ahead share a nice breakfast I made the other day. Nothing “special” recipe wise – just your basic scrambled eggs, hash brown, and bacon.

What you may not realize, though, is that I completely styled this meal from beginning to end – AND it was still edible afterwards! Continue Reading »

This year I am taking advantage of my son’s young age. A Christmas tree is no place to be hanging fragile breakable ornaments with an almost-two-year-old around. But, his age and care-free ways are a great excuse to make some homemade Christmas ornaments this year that he can not only help make, but will also withstand pulling, squeezing, bumping, and falling.

And, in keeping with the theme of my food blog – these ornaments are made from recycled food packaging – namely – Actimel yogurt drinks (known as DanAktive in the US). To be honest, we don’t drink Actimel since we’re not really fond of sweetened yogurt, but since I wanted to be able to do this project, I bought a pack of 6 and poured out the yogurt into my popsicle molds and froze them – they make a great snack and hold much longer frozen!

This is a really fun, quick, and simple project that a toddler can help make with adult assistance or older children can make by themselves.

What you will need for 6 snowmen: Continue Reading »

My husband turned this “ordinary” old music cabinet that we got on Ebay into an awesome multi functional cabinet.

As I said in my last post:

I have to say that it is the most exciting piece of furniture in our apartment because it works as a tromp l’oeil. It goes from being this: Continue Reading »

Last night my family and I took a stroll to our local Christmas Market. And, something really caught my eye: the handmade children’s Christmas ornaments hanging from the trees!

It seems that each tree is from a different preschool. I took pictures of my favorites/the ones I felt I could easily reproduce with my son.

My absolute favorite one is of the snowmen made from yogurt drink bottles.

6 great Christmas Ornament Ideas: Continue Reading »

I know this is not a design blog.

But, I am just so excited to share some really great (and inexpensive) holiday ideas with you. I am feeling quite inspired.

For Thanksgiving a friend brought over and self-made arrangement with a candle and some foliage (moss, mini pine cones, sticks, leaves, etc) from a walk through our local forest. When I saw this I was so excited and felt really inspired.

Yesterday I decided to take the single arrangement apart and make it into 5 different arrangements to share with you. These are all really really great and very budget-friendly arrangements that you can make in a few minutes. Continue Reading »

Back in May while on vacation in Texas visiting my mom and in-laws I found myself awake one night jotting down food ideas in a little notebook I found lying around.

Ideas like: BLT minis with balsamic reduction, Seafood croquettas, roasted tomato & shrimp ceviche, chocolate-covered angel food cake pops, and 5 different types of deviled eggs.

Some I have managed to make while others are waiting for the right season.

Sometimes my creations work out, and sometimes they don’t, but these really hit the mark. The flavors worked so well with one another and really gave a full flavor all around. I was very very happy with the way these turned out.

I should add, though, that’s (visually) it’s not such a great idea to make the guacamole ahead of time…it darkens and doesn’t look so pretty, but it will still taste just fine.

I also thought these were going to be way too spicy for my German guests who cannot handle spicy foods at all, but once everything is mixed together, the heat dwindles and is more of a nice after flavor.

I followed these instructions on how to make perfectly centered deviled eggs with fantastic success!  Bellow I have made a sort of summed-up version of the process.

You will not be disappointed with these deviled eggs! Continue Reading »

I know I rarely post twice in a day, but I am so excited about this find that I had to share it with you!

So, one this I never mentioned is that for my birthday my mom gave me this awesome book: Food Styling For Photographers (if you buy it through my amazon store, a small percentage is donated to my blog!). I had been wishing for this book for quite some time now, and I ready through it quickly once I got my hands on it. It’s like a great novel for foodies…without being a novel at all. It is not just a book on food styling, but rather a book written for photographers who are not food stylists but need to food style for some reason or another.  There are lots of pictures, step by step explanations, and great lighting and camera tips.

That being said, there are exact instructions on how to style just about anything. However, while I learned a lot from this book, I don’t think I will be making margaritas out of Soil Moist granules anytime soon – even if they look fantastic. I like to stick to the edible type of styling, and there are plenty of ways to achieve that.

One food styling technique that caught my eye was how to style bacon (page 210-211 in book). It never dawned on me that most bacon is curly when styled and it always comes out flat when I cook it.

I am going to share with you just how easy it is to make this, and then share with you my recipe for baked potato chowder bellow! Continue Reading »

If I have told you once, I’ve told you many times at this point: I live in Germany. And, here there is no such thing as pumpkin pie.

However, there are plenty of pumpkins at this time of year. So, while I cannot go to the store and by a can of pumpkin to make pumpkin pie with, I can really really easily (in 20 minutes) make a homemade version that works perfectly.

How did I get this idea and why is there a baby cookbook in the picture???
When my son was younger, I used to cook all his baby food for him from scratch. I was introduced to this wonderful little book (in German) called “Das Baby-Kochbuch” – The Baby-Cookbook” with many many recipes divided up by age. It really helped me pull everything together. As one of the first meals they recommend feeding your child is pumpkin puré. I would have never come to that conclusion on my own, but my son was head over heals for it. Unfortunately, he also ended up being allergic to it.

I used to make large batches of everything, freeze small meal-sized portions, and defrost them in a bowl of warm water for him to eat them. Once we found out that he was allergic, I was left with a few frozen puréed pumpkin cubes and I decided to make pumpkin pie with them. I was so thrilled by how well it worked that I decided this Thanksgiving I would make my own as well.

In the recipe I will share with your bellow I use a Hokkaido pumpkin which has a light orange color as well as a mild flavor. So, if you like a milder pumpkin flavor than what you’re used to in the can, I recommend you use a Hokkaido pumpkin. If you want something stronger and more fragrant, I recommend going with “Nutmeg Pumpkin” – which I am translating directly from the German word of “Muskatkürbis”. If you don’t know what kind of pumpkin I am talking about, you can see a picture of it here named “Muskatkürbis”. It’s dark green on the outside and dark orange on the inside.

Moving on to the recipe… Continue Reading »

Many of you who have herbal gardens at home know what when winter rolls around and plants start to freeze, your herb plants will “die” for the winter.

So, what do you do with all extra herbs?
You can: Continue Reading »