For the Love of Food

Time sure does fly when you have a lot to do.  I want to apologize to my Taste&Create partner for being over a whole week late to post…even though i did have my recipe done with plenty of time left.

For those of you who are curious – this is what I have been working on: Columbia Bakery Café for over a year now, and I will finally be opening my café in July.

And, let me tell you, this soup is GOOD! really good. It tastes like silky smooth sweet and slightly savory buttery potatoes. Please check out Samayal Arai for her recipe. It’s really quick to put together and so delicious!

Here’s her recipe.

In the spirit of trying new foods for my Iraqi dinner party that I held last weekend, I made shorbat rumman (pomegranate soup).

This was the only course that left people saving the word “interesting” too many times to have it seem enjoyable. To be honest, I was quite disappointed by this soup. It ended up being over spiced, but not flavorful enough. I would definitely make some changes to this soup to have it fit my flavor palate.

Now, I’m not a big fan of cilantro (coriander), but I wanted to try the recipe in it’s entirety…although I had to leave the mint out because mint will dry up your milk if you are breast feeding. So, I left it as it was – the recipe called for 2 cups of chopped cilantro. It just sends chills down my spine to think of eating so much cilantro in one dish. Next time, I will just leave it out completely. If you are a cilantro-lover – like my mom – just leave it in and you will be happy. Also, in the second round of adding liquid – at the very end when the pomegranate juice comes into play, the original recipe calls for adding another 8 cups of water. I think this really ruined my soup’s flavor and made it taste so watery that I couldn’t save it by adding my of anything else. I would also add more salt to the meatballs.

Here is the original recipe. Has anyone ever made this or had it somewhere? What is it supposed to taste like? Continue Reading »

Voting is now open!  Please cast your vote for me here. 

Now, I have hosted many parties in my short life: impromptu dinner parties, lunch parties, brunch parties, garden parties, winter solstice parties, children’s birthday parties, Thanksgiving parties…I could go on for quite a while.  But, I’ve never hosted a luxurious dinner party.  So, when Foodbuzz challenged us to host a luxurious dinner party I hit the web to get ideas on how to host one.

To my utter surprise, there is not a lot of information out there on how to host a luxurious dinner party – needless to say a small intimate dinner party.  There is plenty of information on how to throw huge and elegant wedding bashes, but since I cannot seat 100+ in my home, I had to turn to other sources.

I quickly emailed the two people I knew would have detailed thoughts as to what a luxurious dinner party would entail.  Could I hold it in my home since my dining table is in my kitchen?  Would I need a server?  These are just some of the questions I had.  Surprisingly – well, maybe not – I got quite different answers from both sources, but good advice none the less.

So, what do you need to put together a luxurious dinner party?? Continue Reading »

When Foodbuzz asked us to pick a cuisine that was from another culture – and outside of our comfort zone – I had to think really hard.  First I had to think of where I have never traveled to- I have traveled to quite a few countries -  AND then also take out all the cuisines of countries I regularly “travel to” in my kitchen (Chinese, North African, Japanese, etc).  Picking something outside of my comfort zone is also pretty hard since I generally enjoy all foods.  BUT, everyone has something they’re just not so keen on.

Two foods that I am generally less comfortable eating are anything with curry and fish.  Fish is generally eaten everywhere in the world, but there are places in the world that eat more fish than others.  So, I pulled out my map (I’m a geographer and always have  a map handy) and started looking for someplace I’d never been, never had cuisine from that region, and predominantly ate fish.  Soon my finger was circling around Iceland.

I’ve never been to Iceland, but have always wanted to go.  It just seems so beautiful there with it’s majestic mountains and fjords.  And, they eat fish – lots of fish.  Dry fish, salted fish, cooked fish, smoked fish, baked fish…fish, fish, fish – and sheep heads (and other body parts).  This was it – I was already starting to feel nervous – I would have to not only make a fish dish, but most of the recipes looked through either had disgusting looking food in their pictures, or no picture at all.  I opted for a recipe with no picture so that I wouldn’t have any bias as to what it would look like, and tried to keep calm.

I decided on a recipe for fish soup since I’d never had fish in a soup before and I’m all about trying new things.  I read through many many recipes, and settled on one that had many interesting ingredients, but was quick to prepare.

And, to my utter surprise – it was good.  It had a wonderfully mild flavor, and I promptly found myself at the end of my second bowl.  My husband was not so thrilled – he doesn’t like anything that has to do with fish.  Luckily, my older son is head over heals for fish and was able to share in the delight with me.  I also went ahead and packaged some up for a friend of mine who always brings me different soups to try, and she called my in the evening to get the recipe.

This soup is good.

Continue Reading »

This is a German recipe, that I modified, from the Internet chefkoch.de . I have posted it on various occasions.

I found this cute little container while I was on vacation in DC last summer. My son doesn’t like to eat soup, but if you serve it in a cute tiny bowl with an even tinier spoon, he will eat it all. Continue Reading »

Well, I have some really exciting news to share with you all today. I am now 15 weeks pregnant with my second child!

Most of you have noticed that I don’t post as frequently anymore and being pregnant is one of the reasons why. When I’m not doing my household chores or playing with my son, I am napping from utter exhaustion!

About a week ago I started to become less tired and have taken up more cooking myself. Up to now my husband has been doing most of the cooking.

One major downside I found to being pregnant this time around is my inability to cook or look at food on websites like Tastespotting. Some dishes look tasty and then others just make me want to puke…and dishes I would normally like otherwise. Luckily, that part is over and we are on to happier more food-filled days…along with warmer and sunnier days I hope! This winter is driving me crazy! Every time I saw snow start to fall I felt like puking…I need Spring!

Ok, so the recipe I am sharing with you today is for a Colombian soup that my mom would make for me on my birthdays because it is a bit time consuming. The last time I took the time to make it myself I was pregnant with my first son…that was over 2 years ago!

The great thing about making such a big pot of soup is that we were able to eat it for a whole week. Otherwise, you can freeze potions in freezer bags and just warm-up to eat at a later time.

I hope you all enjoy this soup recipe as much as I do! 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 »

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 »

This post under contsruction due to vandalism.

I just wanted to share the rice soup that we made in class the other day. I did remember to bring my camera, but forgot the SD card – so no pictures from class. Also, only a kind-of recipe! My teacher forgot to print them up and I just couldn’t keep up with writing everything down, so this is what I remember seeing and what she explained as I asked what she was doing. I did get the recipe for fish written down – will share it soon.

I was told that this soup can be eaten warm, cold, or at room temperature – it’s your choice.  We ate it warm and I enjoyed it very much. Continue Reading »