For the Love of Food

Taste&Create partners, originally uploaded by my_amii.

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

So, the reason I wasn’t blogging last week is because I was enjoying some company at home from my brother and sister in law. My brother-in-law, who is currently a chef at a country club in Colorado, shared his secret for making delicious salsa.

I was expecting it to be complicated, but, as is much of the time, the best recipes are the easiest to put together – it just comes down to good ingredients.

This salsa is oven-roasted. Please don’t let that cause you to run away now – I promise this is EASY and delicious. It’s as simple as throwing roughly chopped ingredients on a baking sheet with some olive oil, roasting, pureeing, and seasoning with some salt, lime juice, and some cilantro. You can change it up as many different ways you’d like. My brother-in-law said it is just important to have twice as much tomato (or tomatillo) as onion. I do have to add, though, that the more tomatillo you use in comparison to tomato will leave you with a thicker salsa. So, if you want it a bit more runny, only add a few tomatillos or leave them out all together.

Goes really well with the taco salad I made last week. Continue Reading »

It is hard to believe that I have been blogging for five years now.  I have also been living overseas for just as long.  And, to be honest, if I hadn’t moved overseas, this blog may have never happened.

Originally I started For the Love of Food to share vegetarian recipes with friends who kept calling up to ask me for my recipes for their daughter or sister or loved one who just turned vegetarian.  I got tired of emailing out (and in some cases – hand writing) tons of recipes.  So, when my husband suggested a blog, I thought it would be a fantastic idea because my family could just go straight to the blog for the recipes instead of constantly having to ask and wait for me to reply…sometimes weeks later.

Later on, For the Love of Food developed into a place where my family, an ocean removed, could read-up on what I was cooking on a weekly or daily basis.  And, now I use it to share with the world the many dishes that I make from scratch…mostly American food made with German ingredients.  Which takes me back to my previous statement of this blog possibly never happening had I not moved overseas.  Moving overseas and far away from home creates a void in the heart that can often only be filled with a slice of homemade goodness reminiscent of happy childhood days.  The search to fill this void and bring home a few kilometers miles closer is what currently fuels my beloved blog.  Everything from ketchup to ice cream to salsa can be found here and has been part of my many hours of searching Google (and your lovely blogs) and my many trials (and just as many errors) in cooking.  Basically, since I couldn’t find the foods I loved at my local supermarket, I was “forced” to learn how to create them from scratch with the raw ingredients at my disposal.  And, in 2007 I was able to take this a step further when I got a small garden plot in my local Inter-cultural garden by planting many produce that are unavailable to me here (tomatillos, jalapeños, really sweet corn).

In 2007 I was also able make great leaps and bounds in my food photography attempts with the purchase of my first digital SLR camera, and later on improve even further with the purchase of an even better lens.

I know the last year the blog has been flaky – which my very tiring pregnancy and birth of our second son and now the move…that I am going to have to repeat in another 7 weeks  (I will tell you that long story when it finally has an end).  Luckily, unlike originally thought, I now have fantastic internet access thanks to a kind neighbor.

On to happier thoughts…and those mini cupcakes on lollipop sticks that I promised earlier…

I don’t have any possibility to bake anything that doesn’t fit in a toaster oven until I am finally in my new home with my new kitchen, but I can share these really cute cupcakes that I made for my son’s 3rd birthday for him and his preschool friends.  It was his request…I just made it happen.  It was a lot of fun, easier than I thought it would be, and delicious beyond my wildest dreams.  So delicious, my husband suggested that I should open an American bakery here in town staring lots of cupcakes.  One day….

Until then, I will share the recipes with you (especially the frosting!!) so that you can recreate these at home.  I already have big plans for these babies….think 4th of July party in our garden with other Americans we have met in my son’s kindergarten recently…it is such a small world!

For the cupcakes I used this recipes that was such a big hit last year and a Pillsbury recipe that my mom shared with me.  And, for the frosting I used this DELICIOUS and EASY Wilton Buttercream Icing and a whole tube of red food coloring.  For the frosting I suggest a good quality reusable piping bag with different tips. Continue Reading »

We love biscuits. But, sometimes we want small ones. They are great for any meal, but especially for buffet-style meals where there is a lot of food – remember that biscuits are a very heavy bread!

For these I decided to make my own buttermilk since every time I buy some the leftovers sit in my refrigerator taking-up much needed space. It’s quite simple. For every cup of milk add 1 teaspoon of white vinegar and mix it so it thickens slightly – that’s it. Continue Reading »

This has been a very long month for me.  I was very very sick.  Every time I thought I was just starting to get better, I would take a turn for the worse or come down with something else.  I am still fighting off the nasty remnants of a flu in my lungs, but I seem to be over my 4-week long run with stomach flus.

I lived off of dry toast, dry pretzel sticks, homemade Gatorade, and bland potatoes for 4 weeks.  I have lost quite a lot of weight – 11.22 lbs to be exact.  And, my poor family has been living off of sandwiches and frozen pizzas for those 4 weeks and their tummies are rumbling for some real food.  So is mine, but I am taking baby steps.  We even had to go ahead and get someone to help clean our home once a week since I was too weak to get out of bed.

It is terrible for a food-lover to be sick to her stomach!  I spent so many days dreaming of food.  You know you are not getting enough nutrients when you are sick to your stomach and you wish you could down a plate of sushi.  Right now I could go for some chicken wings.

So, since I haven’t cooked anything in 4 weeks, there is not much to share with you other than I am still alive and getting better.  I hope this weekend I can break my 4 weeks of no cooking and be able to post for you all on Monday.

Thanks to all of those who emailed me your well-wishes.  I was able to read them, but didn’t always have the energy to answer.

The other day I had the privileged of visiting one of the most adorable and Christmas-spirited towns as of yet in Germany.

A friend of mine has been talking about taking me and my family to visit the town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber for quite some time now. It’s a small town west of where I live on the boarder with Baden-Würtemburg and Bavaria (but still in Bavaria).

The town is filled with the sounds of happy seasonal music, people chatting, roasted almonds, and grilled bratwurst. It’s everything I love about Germany,rolled into one small town during the Advent season. And, Rothenburg is defiantly a town built upon the tourism industry – there are just too many year-round Christmas stores to say otherwise.

Continue Reading »

Every month the Mother’s Day out place that my son attends has an international brunch buffet run by a mom. The grocery bill is paid for up to €35, and the cook is paid €30 for her services. It’s a voluntary option, but I think it’s a great way to introduce others to real traditional meals.

In September I cooked an American brunch as my contribution, and people were absolutely amazed at the types of American cuisine they had never heard of – namely banana bread muffins, buttermilk biscuits, and breakfast sausage. Waldorf salad and fruit salad are pretty well knows around the world.

I had guests so thrilled by this meal that I had recipes request after recipe request, and I even made a new friend – a Chinese lady with a son 5 days younger than mine who also loves to cook. And, I can attest to this fact now. She invites me over often for our sons to play and to show me how to cook her homemade Chinese dishes. She used to own a Chinese restaurant in Munich. So, eventually, I will share what I have learned with you… I am still catching up with posts from September..so it may take a while since it’s mid November and there is still October and November to cover!

Anyways, back to food… it was a hit. In October I cooked a Colombian brunch which was also a hit, but I forgot my camera!! And, in December I will cook a Texan brunch where I will even bring my own canned tomatillo salsa from this summer!

So, next time you are planning to make an American brunch for your family or friends, you can try this menu. It was a hit! Continue Reading »

Welcome back to Taste&Create hosted by me at For the Love of Food. I want to give a very very special Thank You to Min from the Bad Girl’s Kitchen who hosted last month so I could go on vacation with peace of mind that everything was being taken care of.

I also want to apologize for Taste&Create not happening in September. Life just came crashing down on me, but after a nice relaxing vacation in Ireland, I am back with more energy and resolve.

Just an FYI: next month’s sign-up will go as planned from December 1-December 8, but because of the hectic holiday season, submission due dates will be extended until January 15th. There will be no sign-up in January then and the following one will be in February.

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.

Here is this month’s partner list: Continue Reading »

While looking through some (and by some I mean thousands) photos today for some garden-related business (I am president of our local inter cultural community garden), I realized that there were many photos that I had not uploaded or blogged about from the month of September.

Remember – that month when I basically disappeared from my blog??
Well, this is a preview of the next few blog posts to come.

I will be sharing with you:
1. My thoughts on blueberry sour cream ice cream
2. An easy recipe for ice coffee (made with tea!)
3. A much cuter version of toad-in-a-hole
4. The last good produce from my garden
5. A great new chocolate chip cookie recipe
6. Some great bakery finds
7. A breakfast buffet I cooked
8. The rejuvenation of my spice drawer
9. My completely renovated kitchen – finally
10. Double flavored popsicles

All starting tomorrow!

Meet Efthimia, blogger at Saffron Gatherer.  Efthimia is the winner of my Help Me Name This Drink Contest with her entry of Samoan Beach and the description of

“Seems so simple and wet intriguing. Seems so peaceful and yet so appealing, so ready to blow your top. Like a Samoan Beach.”

The “prize” for winning the contest is to be featured on my blog for all you out there to read about.  So, I thought it would be great to post this while on vacation (greetings from Ireland by the way) so that the winner would get the longest time possible as the top post.

Let me tell you a little about what Efthimia shared with me about herself:

• she’s 33
• studied geology and geographic information systems
• works in a gas supply company
• she loves 2 things in her life: books and eating
• she has 2 blogs (a third will be coming out soon)
• One of her blogs is on books and her writing adventures
• she is a published fantasy novel writer (no wonder she is so good with words!)
• she started blogging about cooking because:

“there are so many things I wanted to share with other people, like what it tastes to be in a loving family, or what it tastes when you need someone to love, or even what should my fantasy heroes be eating in order to keep fit for their adventures. It’s a little what-mood-I’m-in-right-now, when it comes to picking a them to post.”

The Saffron Gatherer, Efthimia’s cooking blog is mainly in Greek, but, every once in a while, she posts in both Greek and English so that those of us who don’t read Greek can get a glimpse of what the yummy pictures are made of.  Of course, there is always Google Translate or other similar free online translating sites that will easily tell you what is in a recipe.  I tested it out with great success on Google Translate.

So, for those of you who enjoy Greek food or who love to try new things, go over to The Saffron Gatherer and try out some of Efthimia’s dishes.

And, again, thank you to Efthimia for naming giving my new drink the great name of Samoan Beach!

Samoan Beach recipe here.