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.

Welcome everyone to this month’s Taste&Create event! Welcome to our new members and welcome back to our older members!  I will not be taking part this month since I am on vacation deep in the Rocky Mountains and will be flying back home to Germany shortly before the deadline.

Just a reminder:

-the rules can be found here.

-please do not email me your submission, go to the Taste&Create website, register/sign-in and submit your entry there by the 24th of March, 2011.

The next Taste&Create you can sign-up for is April and sign-ups will end on April 8th, 2011 for that event.

Here is this month’s partner list:
Searching for Spice& samayalarai-cookingisdivine
The Life and Loves of Grumpy’s Honeybunch & Seduce Your Tastebuds
On and Off My Plate & Elephant Eats
NO REASON NEEDED& The Bad Girl’s Kitchen
Everybunny Loves Food & Eat Laugh Love

For this month’s Taste&Create I was partnered with Seduce Your Tastebuds…. who has a whole slew of exotic dishes on her blog.  I searched through her blog for a while not able to decide on exactly which dish I would make – they all looked so good – until I came across her Kiwi Salsa recipe and I knew then and there that that was the one I had to make.

I LOVE salsa: fresh tomato salsa, cooked tomato salsa, tomatillo salsa, roasted tomato salsa, mango salsa…but I had never heard of kiwi salsa.  And, I thought that it was quite fitting since I am currently on vacation in Texas to go ahead and make a salsa.

I was very pleasantly surprised by how well all the flavors harmonize together.  The acidity and subtle sweetness of the kiwis left little need for added acidity (lemon juice) and perfectly replace the traditional tomato.  I did add more kiwi than the recipe originally called for because I thought it tasted good, but needed more kiwi to really hold the name kiwi salsa, and I reduced the onion to 1/4th of an onion, which I still found a bit over powering – I will reduce to 1 Tablespoon in the future.  The cucumber gave the perfect body to the salsa helping to diminish the heat of the huge jalapeño I added.

As opposed to PJ, I went ahead and threw my ingredients, individually, into the food processor because I don’t like chunky salsa since I feel I don’t get all the flavors in one bite.  That and (sorry mom) my mom has a tiny knife that I don’t get along with when chopping vegetable…I really miss my cook’s knife.

Ironically enough, I didn’t have any tortilla chips on hand to go with the salsa, but crackers work well too.  I will be using the salsa tomorrow as an accompaniment to fish which I can’t wait to try because I think they will go perfectly together.  I will keep you informed on that!

Here’s my version of PJ’s recipe: Continue Reading »

 

Welcome everyone to this month’s Taste&Create event! It looks like it’s just the four of us this month, and we will make the most of it!

Just a reminder:

-the rules can be found here.

-please do not email me your submission, go to the Taste&Create website, register/sign-in and submit your entry there by the 24th of February, 2011.

The next Taste&Create you can sign-up for is March and sign-ups will end on MArch 8th, 2011 for that event.

Here is this month’s partner list
NO REASON NEEDED & Searching for Spice
For the Love of Food & Seduce Your Tastebuds

For this month’s Taste&Create I was partnered with Kris from Behold the Metatron. And, when I came across her meatloaf recipe, I knew exactly with recipe I was going to make! I looooove meatloaf, but I rarely take the time to make it. So, since we hadn’t had it in …well months… now was as good a time as any to make some.

I have to say that it was very easy to put all the ingredients together, and the addition of the oatmeal gave it a lighter less dense texture that we all enjoyed. I did use a mixture of ground beef and pork since I have no access to ground turkey. I would have really liked to have tried it with ground turkey..maybe when I’m in the US on vacation I can. I really liked the addition of the red bell peppers – I’ve never had meatloaf with bell peppers in it. In the future, I may go ahead and add roasted bell peppers instead so that they are softer – even after an hour of baking the chopped bell pepper retained it’s crunch. I also think the smoky flavor of a roasted bell pepper would really complement this recipe.

Also, another first for me was tomato sauce on top of my meatloaf. I’m still not sure if I really like it or not with tomato sauce on top – barbecue sauce on the other hand would convince me a bit more.

All in all it is a great recipe that is really easy to put together. You can find the original recipe here!

Welcome everyone to this month’s Taste&Create event!  And, I’d like to share with you that this is my 800th post of For the Love of Food!  Wow, we’ve really been together for a quite a while now.

Just a reminder:

-the rules can be found here.

-please do not email me your submission, go to the Taste&Create website, register/sign-in and submit your entry there by the 24th of November, 2010.

The next Taste&Create you can sign-up for is December/January and sign-ups will end on December 8th, 2010 for that event. Because of the holidays, as we do every year, it is a 2-month-long event to give everyone time to relax a bit. The next sign-up after the December sign-up will be in February.

Here is this month’s partner list:
Seduce Your Tastebuds & Needful Things
Eat Laugh Love & A Balanced Kitchen
NO REASON NEEDED & The Bad Girl’s Kitchen
Whisk and a Prayer & More Than Burt Toast#
Searching for Spice & Busy-at-Home

Well, it seems that this month we have a bit lower turn-out than lately, but that’s ok…they’re probably all really busy with the Project Foodblog competition.

Just a reminder:

-the rules can be found here.

-please do not email me your submission, go to the Taste&Create website, register/sign-in and submit your entry there by the 24th of October, 2010.

The next Taste&Create you can sign-up for is November and sign-ups will end on November 8th, 2010 for that event.

Here is this month’s partner list:
Indecisive Baker & Busy-at-Home

Searching for Spice & For the Love of Food

The Low Fat Chick & Every Bunny Loves Food

Tasty Curry Leaf & NO REASON NEEDED

Dragon Musings & Seduce Your Tastebuds

Whisk and a Prayer & The Bad Girl’s Kitchen

We’re back again for another great month of recipe sharing.  We had a great 3-year anniversary last month, and I thank everyone for making such delicious desserts!

I have been getting ready for some out of town (out of country) guests and have been very very busy around the house. I apologize for the partner list being late!

Just a reminder:
-the rules can be found here.
-please do not email me your submission, go to the Taste&Create website, register/sign-in and submit your entry there by the 24th of September, 2010.

The next Taste&Create you can sign-up for is October and sign-ups will end on October 8th, 2010 for that event.

Here is this month’s partner list:

TastyCurryLeaf & American Women Don’t Get Fat
Busy-at-Home & Cupcake Project
Holy Cannoli Recipes & Vrybzy baking and more!
Searching for Spice & chefhema
YUM FOOD & Baking and Cooking, A Tale of Two Loves
Live to eat!!! & NO REASON NEEDED
Rhubarb and Honey & The Bad Girl’s Kitchen
What Would Cathy Eat & Sweet N Spicy
For the Love of Food & Eat Laugh Love
Jeanette’s Healthy Living & The Tailgate Goddess
A Boulder Table & My Green Mouth
Dragon Musings & Everybunny Loves Food
Not So Unique Ideas & Indecisive Baker

This month is the big 3 for Taste&Create and to celebrate everyone is blogging about a dessert on their partner’s blog.

I chose to blog about Cupcakes, Food and Pretty Lil Things (my partner), Chocolate Caramel Seduction Cupcakes. And, although mine don’t look as awesome as hers, they sure did taste sooooo very deliciously sweet.

This is how good they were: Continue Reading »

Hi everyone, and Happy Birthday! Taste&Create has turned 3 years old! I am really glad that we have such a big turn-out this time around, and would like to welcome all of our new bloggers.

Because it is our 3-year anniversary, we will be doing something a little different this month – next month things will be back to normal. This month instead of the typical “make any dish on your partner’s blog” please make a dessert from your partner’s blog to commemorate our special month.

Just a reminder:
-the rules can be found here.
-please do not email me your submission, go to the Taste&Create website, register/sign-in and submit your entry there by the 24th of August, 2010.

The next Taste&Create you can sign-up for is September and sign-ups will end on September 8th, 2010 for that event.

Here is this month’s partner list:
Vrybzy Baking and More! & Dish on Diva Desserts
YUM FOOD & Dragon Musings
Starting All Over Again & seduce your tastebuds
For the Love of Food & Cupcakes, Food and Pretty Lil Things
Laws of the Kitchen & Baking and Cooking, a Tale of Two Loves
Cupcake Project & A Whisk and a Prayer
Rhubarb and Honey & Tinned Tomatoes
Always Eat on the Good China & mygreenmouth
KC in the Kitchen & NO REASON NEEDED
Bombay Foodie & Busy-at-Home