For the Love of Food

Even in the bitter cold months of winter, I sometimes enjoy eating cold food. This Mexican 6 layer dip is a favorite of mine because it’s really quick, flavorful, and there’s little clean-up involved.

Instead of using traditional salsa, I went ahead and used some homemade Rotel that I made last summer. For the life of me I can’t find the recipe I used and it seems I never posted it on my blog! It does give the dip a much more balanced flavor than regular salsa, so you decide. And, hopefully this summer I will have a recipe for you for some homemade Rotel.

Continue Reading »

Being sick for a whole month I completely forgot that the Super Bowl was this weekend! Unfortunately, I won’t be able to watch it being here in Germany and not having satellite TV, but no worries. I will find out who won tomorrow and be just as happy.

For those of you who are looking for some last minute delicious Super Bowl party ideas, I have 30 great recipes for you! No matter if it’s just you and your best friend or your entire neighborhood block, I have a recipe here for every party size. Going it solo? No problem. Vegetarian/Vegan? No problem. I have something for everyone.

Bellow are links to all the pictures above and their recipes: 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 »

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 »

Way back in January I planted all my tomatoes, chilies, and tomatillos indoors so that they would be ready in May for planting.

Not many believed that I would succeed, but after seeing what I have harvested this year…there are no more disbelievers. It’s been a good year as a gardener and harvester of my small garden plot.

I decided to go with a sort-of square-foot gardening technique. I got a lot of questions and raised eyebrows. But, in the end, I was the only one with over 30 successful tomato plants and over 15 chili plants.

All of a sudden one day, everything needed to be harvested – it was all ripe – and we were all going on a trip to the US. We weren’t about to leave 4 lbs of tomatoes, 8 lbs of tomatillos (from 2 plants!!!), and 30 jalapeños to go to waste. Not when we could can them!

So, we got canning.

I had never made tomatillos salsa until this day. But, I found a recipe I was comfortable with (I was trying to find something that seemed like it would taste most like Freebird’s World Burrito’s Tomatillo Sauce) and I did!

Something else I learned from my first tomatillo plants: tomatillos can grown to be as large as a medium-sized tomato and are nice and citrusy, sweet, and tangy. Who would have known that my tomatillos would be so much better and oh so different than those I bought in a grocery store in Texas and harvested the seeds from.

This sauce is oh so very easy to make and tastes great weather you eat it all right away or can it and eat it later. The canning does take away most of the taste of the lime juice – so adding a squeeze of fresh lime juice before serving as a salsa would do it some good.

Also, since we grew our own jalapeños in Germany (which doesn’t have as many intensely hot and sunny days as Texas – heat makes chilies hotter!), when we seeded them for the salsa, we had a completely mild sauce – no spiciness what so ever. So, if your jalapeños come from a more mild climate and you want it a bit spicier, I highly suggest just leaving the seeds in.

without further adieu: Continue Reading »

When I was back in the US in May visiting my mom, my aunt took us out for my mom’s birthday to a place called the Red Onion Café. It was a beautiful and simple and the food was presented in a flawless and spectacular manner.

I was in foodie heaven!

The dish I had was called Chicken Tikal. It was a thin breast of grilled chicken over puréed black beans, I think there was rice, sweet platanos, thin onion rings, cheese sauce, and sour cream. After thinking long a hard about it, I decided that it couldn’t be that difficult to make and I took a try at it (without the sweet platanos…although I would have loved to have had some!).

The one dish I was worried about tackling was the thin onion rings, so I did some searching and came across The Pioneer Woman Cooks! blog and her recipe for Onion Strings.

Oh my…they were so AWESOME!!!

I am usually really good at burning food when frying, but her pictorial recipe really pulled me through. I ended up with the most fabulous crispy onion strings/rings that have ever touched my lips!

I actually made this when a guest was coming over for dinner and he was blown away…so was my husband…and my son loved the onion strings so much he refused to eat anything else for dinner (well, maybe he did eat some rice). I will definitely be making this again for the company coming over for dinner on Thursday!

Bellow are the recipes for the whole meal: Continue Reading »

**Happy 4th of July everyone (in the USA)!!!I miss being out of the States on this holiday. We will be celebrating by grilling on Saturday down at the garden. Hamburgers and hot dogs…can’t get any more 4th of July-ish traditional than that!**

I was searching the inter-tubes for a good-looking guacamole recipe the other day. And, I found one, but little did I know that it would be the best tasting guacamole recipe I have ever made!

It was flavorful, but not over powering, creamy and chunky at the same time, and gone 1/2 way through our meal! For the first time I made guacamole and there were no leftovers!

I found the recipe here at The Daily Green.

Here’s how I did it: Continue Reading »

My husband had the great idea of making this pizza the other day. It’s his toppings recipe, and it was quite yummy.

The egg is the top of the sombrero and the corn and kidney beans denote that it’s Mexican (in Germany). Anything with kidney beans and corn in Germany is classified as Mexican, but I can’t complain, it’s tasty.

Continue Reading »

I have 3 partners this month for Taste&Create…don’t ask, I just do.

So, it was pretty difficult to decide what to make from each blog…there were just so many delicious recipes to chose from.

From my first partner, Ann from Redacted Recipes, I finally decided on her Bean and Cheese Tostadas with Pico de Gallo. I happened to have a can on refried black beans at home that a friend brought me from Guatemala, and I also happened to bring back about 100 corn tortillas back home with me from Texas. So, I was automatically drawn to this recipe. That, and it was a quick recipe to create when I dealing to my little guy being sick at home and still having to cook for my husband and I.

So, if you are a Tex-Mex fanatic, go check out this recipe because it’s awesome! And, the homemade Pico de Gallo was so easy and fabulous , I just couldn’t believe that that’s all there was to it!

As many of you know in May of 2008 my blog was vandalized.  I have been slowly reconstructing lost blog posts as I come upon them or people request missing recipes.

One recipe in particular that I have been looking for for months is Spice Of Life’s Southwest Style Shrimp that I made for a Taste&Create event while I was vacationing at my mom’s house in the US.  For lack of intelligence on my behalf, the answer was here on my blog all along, I just wasn’t searching logically enough.

I have been craving this delicious shrimp for quite a while now, and with Spring hiding somewhere around the corner, I am happy to be able to make a winter-friendly recipe taht reminds me of the hot days of summer!

This is a slightly different take on my blogger friend’s recipe because we went ahead and used refried beans and fresh slices of avocado instead of making her black bean and corn salad.

Chili Lime Shrimp Soft Tacos
Ingredients:
1 Tablespoon Chili Powder
1/2 teaspoon Garlic Powder
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon ground Cumin
750 grams (ca. 1.5 lbs) fresh Shrimp, peeled and divined (you can also use frozen shrimp, but the flavors just don’t compare!)
Cooking Spray
1 Tablespoon fresh Lime Juice
1/2 Cup Refried Beans (try my great homemade recipe here)
1 Avocado, sliced
1/2 Cup shredded Cheddar Cheese
4 Corn Tortillas

Directions:
Heat a large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat.  Combine the chili powder, garlic powder, salt, and ground cumin in a small bowl.

Place the shrimp in a large bowl and sprinkle on the spice mixture, combine until all shrimp s well coated.

Spray the pan with some cooking spray, add the shrimp, and cook for about 3 minutes, or until cooked (turn pink and white).  Quickly add the lime juice, mix, and remove from pan.  The lime juice will evaporate really quickly, but it will give the shrimp a fantastic flavor.

Arrange your soft taco with about 2 tablespoons of refried beans, 3 shrimp, 3 slices of avocado, and some shredded cheddar cheese on top.  Enjoy!

Makes 4 soft tacos.