Crab Salad with Pimiento MayonnaisePimientos and a touch of cayenne flavor the light creamy dressing of this easy seafood salad.
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Crab Salad with Pimiento Mayonnaise
Korean Beef Stir-Fry
Updated, from the recipe archive.
My friends know me well. They know if they invite me over and I see that they have bushels of fresh-picked peaches just waiting for a home that I will offer my own kitchen counter space to take some of those gorgeous peaches off their hands. Such sacrifice, yes, I know. ;-) (Thanks Suzanne!)
Peaches, nectarines, and all manner of stone fruit are glorious in summer. Here is a simple and delicious peach cobbler recipe that we've used for several years. Feel free to experiment with the ratios and the fruit. You can easily add in some blueberries or nectarines. If your peaches aren't perfectly sweet to begin with, you may need to add more sugar to the filling.
Continue reading "Peach Cobbler" »
You’ll find us. With a fork and knife.

To say we love spicy food in this house is an understatement. We like our salsa is sizzling-ly spicy. Our pizza comes with sausage, pepperoni, and double order of fresh jalapeños… which we then top with crushed red pepper. Our jambalaya hits the table with a healthy dose of Tobasco and jalapeno-spiked cornbread. Our fajitas are served with a side of grilled serranos.
We tend to live by the mantra that if it doesn’t make your nose run, then it’s simply not hot enough. There seems to be a fine line between loving the heat and having your face melt off. We understand… and accept the bad with the good.

A busy work schedule of late and a hefty DIY project at our rental house means no time or motivation to cook. The only thing I’ve been really good about is throwing out wilty produce and making reservations. And hummus. I make a double-batch each weekend. I apparently eat a lot of it.
This week’s twice-a-day snack will pack the heat of on-their-last-leg, wrinkly jalapeños ’cause I just couldn’t bring myself to throw them out. To let peppers go bad is shameful but to actually throw them out… down right blasphemy
Roasted Jalapeño Hummus
3 tablespoons lemon juice (approx 2 lemons)
1/4 cup water
6 Tbsp Tahini
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 15-oz can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
3 garlic cloves, peeled
1/2 teaspoon course salt, plus more to taste
1/4 teaspoon cumin
dash of cayenne
2 roasted jalapeños with oil reserved (recipe follows)
Sliced fresh jalapeños, for garnish (optional)
Combine the lemon juice and water in a small bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk the Tahini and olive oil together until smooth.
Process the chickpeas, garlic, salt, cumin, and cayenne in a food processor until almost fully ground, about 15 seconds. Scrape down the bowl. With the food processor running, stream in the lemon and water and process for one minute. Scrape down the bowl again. Turn the food processor on and stream in the Tahini and oil mixture and process until smooth, about another minute. Add the jalapeños (reserve the oil) and process another minute.
Transfer the hummus to a bowl, cover and refrigerate for an hour to let flavors blend. Sprinkle with a pinch of sea salt and drizzle with the reserved oil. Top with jalapeño slices and enjoy! Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 7 days.
Roasted Jalapeños
2 large fresh jalapeños
2 Tbsp olive oil
Place top oven rack 4 inches from the broiler and turn on the broiler. Remove the stems from the peppers and slice horizontally into quarters. Do not remove pith or seeds. Toss the pepper with the olive oil and place into a small oven-safe dish. Broil until blistered and softened. Remove from oven and allow oil and peppers to cool completely. Reserve the oil - you’ll drizzle it over the hummus before eating.
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Bols, the makers of over 30 flavored liqueurs including Blueberry, Mango & Pomegranate want to send you to the city of your choice to tend bar in the hottest spots. All you need to do is create an original video showing off your bartending skills. Of course, they want you to at least one flavor of Bols Liqueur in your original creation. So get mixing, entries must be in by August 31 2008.
Get all the details:
Bols Around the World Video Contest
Curried Corn & Crab Cakes
Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream
Asian Halibut & Brown Rice Packets
Les fruits rouges : Sour Cherries, Red and White Currants
For some reason, since I was a kid, the days after August 15th always felt like already the end of summer — after my grand-mother’s regular family reunion meal of August 15th, date of her fête since her first name was Marie. She always started the meal with melon au porto and jambon du pays. And we invariably had a salade de fruits du jardin (garden fruit salad), amongst other things, to finish the meal. Red and White currants were a must in her fruit salad, as well as preserved cherries. After all, we were no less than twenty-eight mouths to feed.
I am already dreading when these lovely beauties, les fruits rouges de l’été, will be gone! I’d better get some recipes done before this happens.
You too ?
Reader Xpnsve sent us this tropical treat. What a great reward after those meddling kids foils yet another diabolical plan. It is a good thing that Fred drives the Mystery Machine, leave the snacks to Shaggy and Scooby.
Go Scoob!
Scooby Snack
3/4 oz Malibu rum
3/4 oz Midori melon liqueur
1 oz Pineapple juice
1/2 oz Half-and-half
Shake ingredients in a mixing cup with ice. Strain into 7 oz. rocks glass and serve over ice.
Add your favorite cocktail recipe, it could be Drink of the Week!
past Drink of the Week Cocktails
I am sometimes certain that I wait all year for tomato season, you know, the way a more normal person might be excited for the Giants to get back to the field or eagerly anticipate whatever sleek and minimal trinket Apple has coming out this fall. But for me, it’s just tomatoes. I eat them on eggs, in sandwiches, cooked and raw in every possible format from paste to pasta to chili and seriously, don’t even try to bring me a cream cheese-schmeared bagel without a thin slice of tomato on it. Alex did once and let’s just say, it didn’t go over well. Poor Alex.
I love tomatoes so much that I even occasionally take part in the blasphemy that is “sun-dried tomatoes,” most of which are about as dried out in the sun as I am this week–unfortunately not the case for either of us. But lets talk about what sun-dried tomatoes aspired to be before their dreams were co-opted by food packagers and evil-minded chemists: tomatoes roasted slowly at a low temperature.

Who knew there was a whole day devoted to one of the greatest Popsicle ever, the Creamsicle. What a great idea, I enjoyed these so much as a child and occasionally as an adult.
Yum, they are awesome!
Of course, we have a version that comes in a cocktail glass.
Read more:
The Official Popsicle Website
National Creamsicle Day - Zany Holidays
Happy National Creamsicle Day! - Slashfood
Raspberry-Balsamic Chicken with Shallots
Blueberry Crumble
Grilled Corn with Chipotle-Lime Butter
Block Island
“Which way is it?” P. shouted as he was cycling a few meters ahead of me.
“It’s the next right!”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I remember the path!”
The path was rugged and dusty, with many puddles filled with the rain from the previous days. On each side, lines of black berry bushes were loaded with tempting fruit starting to ripen. The path was also leading to one of the many lovely beaches that can be found on Block Island, actually one of our favorite beaches on this small island off the coast of Rhode Island.

This past weekend, we decided to go back to Block island for the second time, after the great trip we’d had there last summer. It was a weekend getaway that we had been looking forward to for a while.
So good that it was finally here.
“You brought the sun with you!” smiling Gaby told us when we arrived at Sea Breeze Inn where we were going to stay once again. She gave us a warm welcome that made us feel we were in fact going home.
“You bet!” I replied, bursting into a loud laughter. In fact, it was quite a relief since the weather forecast had not been too promising. Cycling in the rain would have been a different experience.
It was really nice to see Gaby again, and find this familiar place where we had relaxed and enjoyed warm sunsets last summer. Our program for the weekend was going to be quite similar in fact to last year’s: cycle, relax, rest, pack nice picnics and in short, take it as we please and as it comes.

Since I remembered there was no cooking facilities at the B&B, I planned accordingly and improvised — despite the fact that we traveled on our bikes all along, leaving the car in Point Judith, where we took the ferry: I packed a vegetable peeler and grater, my picnic container, a small glass jar with a homemade vinaigrette so that I could prepare salads.
During our stay, we lunched on simple foods and at night, we dined out. We picnicked on tuna, cucumber and fresh goat cheese sandwiches, with cherry tomatoes and vegetable chips. We ate a carrot salad one day, and a rice salad another day. Since I had also prepared a batch of my chocolate and nut cookies, we enjoyed those as a simple snack, and always had apricots, cherries and roasted nuts to nibble on when we felt like it.

When we were not cycling, we would stop to find a nice quiet spot on a beach where we napped until we felt too warm, eager to get a shady spot. When we sat in the back porch of the B&B, we read books — well, P. did while I was reading cooking-related articles and sketching a few recipes on a notebook. We did not have either a computer or access to our email, so much so that it really felt like a real mini-vacation!


“Shall we have a row now?” P. asked enthusiastically on the last afternoon, after we returned from the beach. I was feeling quite tired by then but I also knew that he had been dying to use the kayak available on the B&B’s premises since he first saw it.
“All right, but you will row, and I will do nothing!”
The pond was still and peaceful in comparison to the constant ocean surf, and we were surprised to find plenty of life in the water.
“We should really nickname this pond turtle pond,” I told P. jokingly at the sight of the small turtles we saw swimming everywhere. They would poke their tiny heads above the surface and stay still, almost suspended in the air, before quickly diving under when they saw us approach. I wished I could have been fast enough to take a snapshot, but they were simply too smart!



One night, we ate at Atlantic Inn. The food was as delicious as we remembered from the dinner we’d enjoyed there the year before, with a definite Asian flair to a more classic new American cuisine. We dined on fresh seafood — scallops, clams, monkfish cooked on the bone and served with different types of flavored rice, sunchoke puree and roasted raddichio. We also sampled a blueberry guacamole served with thin slices of smoked duck that truly picked our curiosity.
Dinner at hotel Manisses, on the other hand, was a total disappointment: poor service and a food that lacked character, beside perhaps for the roasted pumpkin soup with lobster cream which we ate to start our meal. We were sure to not go back.
Dinner at the Atlantic Inn
On our last night, we followed Gaby’s recommendation and dined at Eli’s where we savored surprisingly flavorful and fresh food. I particularly enjoyed the fried blend of white and wild coconut rice served with fresh summer corn, mushrooms and kale that accompanied my herb-grilled mahi-mahi. P.’s dish, pasta cooked with artichokes, lobster and crab meat in a creamy sauce, was equally appetizing. The small restaurant room filled up quickly and we were glad to have arrived early, to avoid long waits — the place does not accept reservations. This time, we promised to go back.
Dinner at Eli’s

“Did you see the lightning last night?” I asked P. when we started to pack our bags on Monday morning. It was so strong that it actually woke me up.
So yes, it happened: the excepted rain and thunderstorm finally arrived. Gaby mentioned a few strong thunderstorms that had occurred earlier in the month causing noticeable damage to some house roofs hit by lightning around the island. I was glad we missed it and that instead, we enjoyed great weather during the entire weekend.
Call this luck!
“I will miss you guys,” Gaby said when she saw us busy loading up our bikes as we were ready to leave.
“Oh us too!” I replied when I gave her a large hug. “But be assured, we will come back next year!”

Thirty minutes after getting on the ferry, we were already back in Point Judith. One hour and a half later, we would be back home.
“What shall we eat for dinner?” I asked P. when we got into the car.
“Something easy. Soup and salad?”
In fact, all I could think of was the pot of corn soup we had enjoyed the day before we left.
“Corn soup for dinner, ça te dit ?” I asked P.
“Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.” He really liked this one.
I cooked the soup with a few fresh local ears of young corn picked at the store on the way back, celery and a young head of celeriac with its greens still attached, and served the soup warm with on top, diced cherry tomatoes , fresh purple basil from the garden, and thin sole fillets lightly cooked and cut in small pieces. Not typical I must say, but we really loved this plat complet (one meal dish) as it was.
And the next day, I served the leftovers with fine fresh goat cheese from Vermont crumbled on top.
You must agree, corn in summer is really something special, non ?
And so is Block Island.

(For 4 people)
Steps:
(Pour 4 personnes)
Étapes :
Alex’s birthday was this past weekend and in case you are new here, let me give you a loose outline of a Standard Dessert Alex Politely Requests: Chocolate. Chocolate with chocolate. Chocolate with caramel. Chocolate with toffee. Chocolate with coffee. Chocolate with hazelnut cream. Chocolate with Oreos. Chocolate cheesecake with brownie chunks. Chocolate icebox cake. Chocolate with raspberries. Chocolate with white chocolate. Chocolate with dulce de leche. Chocolate with banana cake.
What, can you sense a theme or something?
This year we added one more to the chocolate cake pile: Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake. Well, actually, the technical title of the cake is Sour Cream-Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting and Chocolate Peanut Butter Glaze, though it is actually a Sour Cream-Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese Peanut Butter Frosting and Chocolate Peanut Butter Glaze, but all you really need to know is that if you know a chocolate-and-peanut-butter lover, you must make this cake.
Because did I mention the chocolate cake? With the chocolate-peanut butter ganache (I bet you didn’t even know such a thing existed, I sure didn’t and my life may never be the same again. I wish I could quit it.) And the cream cheese peanut butter frosting and filling? Actually, let us pause on that last part. If you’re anything like me, the thought of cream cheese and peanut butter intentionally mixed probably gives you a bit of pause. I don’t know cheese + sweetened peanuts? That can’t be right, I thought. Well, I was wrong. They are perfect together, with the tangy/saltiness of the cream cheese helping the peanut butter hit all the right notes.
With hundreds of hours Olympic coverage to watch over the next two weeks, we figured a drinking game was in order. Of course, we ask that you drink responsibly. There aren’t any Gold Medals for finishing this one first.
Keeping things simple, take a drink each time:
1) There is a reference to the Olympics being “China’s coming out party”
2) They show special interest story about an athlete
3) A commentator tells you what the athlete is thinking
4) They run that scary United Airlines commercial
5) Each time an athlete screws up, they say “He/She was perfect in practice”
6) Each time they pan to George Bush (feel free to do a line of coke as well, *not condoned by DOTW)
7) Each time there is a highlight reel, mixed with the Goo Goo Dolls
8) A former Olympian/Commentator let’s us know what they would have done differently or reminisces on the old days
9) They have a reporter wander around Beijing
10) They reference past glory or a new dynasty
11) Bob Costas has a guest on the couch
12) They show us Yao Ming, Kobe Bryant or LeBron James
13) Each time your country wins a Gold Medal
14) Commentator says athlete is bringing their “A Game”, is going to “Shake things up” or gives 110%
Feel free to add you own by commenting below. We know there are many others we missed.
A dear friend of mine from Alabama called me recently and demanded to know, "why aren't there any grits on your site?!" Uh, because I'm not Southern and I don't know what the heck I'm talking about when it comes to grits and I can't even try to fake it with our readers? Well, not knowing what we are doing has never stopped us in the past, and my dear ole dad found a recipe for grits he couldn't pass up. This was so good I made him make it twice. What I have learned in researching grits is that people who grew up eating them are passionate about how they like them - white corn, hominy grits, with syrup for breakfast, etc. So, if you have a particular way that you like your grits, please let us know about it in the comments.
By the way, according to NBC, Michael Phelps eats grits for breakfast, along with several fried egg sandwiches, an omelet, three slices of French toast, and a stack of chocolate chip pancakes. Breakfast of champions.
Continue reading "Grits with Corn and Onion Greens" »
For those of us who garden and grow tomatoes, there often comes a point in the summer tomato growing season in which the bounty greatly exceeds one's ability to consume it, in its regular tomato form. If you find yourself in this position, and you love tomato juice, V8, Bloody or Virgin Marys, I highly recommend making your own tomato juice. My dad announced the other day that he was going to make some tomato juice and I thought nothing of it. But after one taste, wow. This is how V8 should taste.
Continue reading "Homemade Tomato Juice" »

InBev buys Anheuser-Busch, Moslon buys Coors, Miller and MolsonCoors merge and Pabst buys Stroth’s, Schlitz, and Olypmia. With all the consolidation in the Beer Industry, who know who is now making your favorite brew. Fortune Magazine put together this handy in interactive chart to help us all keep track. Amazingly, Sam Adams Brewer, Boston Beer is now the largest, independent, publicly-traded brewery in the USA.
99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall - Fortune Magazine
I am tortured by two opposing forces in my life: the fact that I love poached eggs–on anything and everything, from asparagus to slow-roasted slices of tomato, crisped cups of Canadian bacon, black bread, I could keep going… — and the fact that I’m terrible at making them.
And this is why it is so ridiculous amusing that I am giving you–or at least the eleven of you that said you were afraid of poaching eggs–a poached egg tutorial today. And by “today” I mean two days because it took me two tries to even get one worth photographing (though in my defense, holding the camera in your right hand while lowering an egg into a pot with your left does have a certain inevitability of disaster).
Obviously, this makes me sort of expert, so let’s get started!
How to Poach an Egg
There are about as many methods to poaching eggs as there are eggs on this earth, from plastic wrap (sorry, ew) to poaching cups to cupcake liners seriously, I’ve lost track but I am sure that people will be eager to share their own in the comments. This is simply the one that works for me. When I’m not holding a camera in my other hand.
First, heat a pot with a few inches of water in it.
Put a splash of vinegar in the water. This helps tighten up the egg. I know there are strong pro- and anti-vinegar in egg-poaching waters out there, but like I said: this is just what works for me!
I usually don’t recycle our Drink of the Week, but we figured once every 4 years is acceptable for honoring the opening of the Olympic Games. What can I say, this cocktail, aptly named “The Olympic” wins a gold medal every time!
Olympic
1 oz. Brandy
1 oz. Triple Sec
1 oz. Orange Juice
Orange Peel
Combine ingredients in a shaker filled with ice, shake and strain into a chilled martini or cocktail glass. Garnish with the orange peel.
more Olympic Cocktails
past Drink of the Week Cocktails
The Bike Ride
The road leading to the nearby bird reserve can be busy during rush hour, but that does not stop me on my bike. P. insists that I wear a helmet, but I am still being a bad sports about it. The afternoon feels windy and warm when I leave the house, and I am looking forward to biking on the rugged lanes of this favorite place of mine. Every time I come here, I feel I am in the middle of the country side, and that is plenty to allow me to refill with good energy. The community gardens part of the area are in full bloom at this time of year, and when I catch a glimpse of large tomatoes turning red in one of the first gardens, I refrain myself from not stealing a few. They are so temptingly good! Nobody would notice, would they?
I like to bike in this part of my neighborhood. I rarely see anyone when I go, beside a few gardeners during the summer. In winter, the entire place is quiet and cool, and in the summer, the place fills up with the many noises that make summer so noticeable. Have you noticed how loud crickets and birds can be? They seem so unaware of how much noise volume they produce. Still, I do not mind since it reminds me of a lot of good times. Even if summer is not necessarily my favorite season, I’ll be honest: there are also really nice sides to it that I really enjoy. Cycling in the warm wind and eating filled-with-sun local fruit and vegetables from the market is one.
Observing the beauty of nature, the bees at work in the open fields full of multicolored flowers, is another one.


A few stops along the way are a must, to enjoy every detail of the life going on there. There is much to see and observe indeed. It feels hotter now that I’ve cycled up and down the path, and I am battling with the mosquitoes that are pretty greedy and alive too. In a funny selfish way, I feel sorry P. is not with me since I know he would attract them more than I do. We keep joking that they prefer Irish to French blood.
There are no fruit to pick here, unfortunately, but I’ve packed a few delicious apricots, roasted almonds and a drink to keep me company if I feel hungry. P. used to tease me about the many snacks I always pack when I leave to the beach or for a walk, but I always tell him : On ne sait jamais ! (You never know!) In fact, he’s learned to need them as much as I do.
When it is time for me to head back, the sun is still quite high and I sense that being in the shade will be a nice welcoming change for me. In fact, I am convinced of it, especially with the prospect of the lovely treat waiting for me upon my return: a chocolate, nuts and banana bread baked earlier in the day.
Nature in Summer
I don’t think I knew what a banana bread was before moving to the United States. First, I was surprised people called it bread since I would rather have called it cake. But be it. I’ve quickly learned that there is a real banana bread culture, with many various recipes that abound. I am actually secretly convinced that every single American home cook has a favorite recipe. Non ? So it will be no surprise for you to hear that, over the years, I’ve become as infatuated with this cake as any American, and for good reasons. A banana bread is moist and delightfully nutritious: the perfect food to provide many good times.
In my recipe, I use rice and quinoa flours, along with tapioca starch. There is not butter, but olive oil (or canola) and almond butter which add a lovely touch to the baked goods. And because I am such a sucker for dark chocolate, I could not resist but add coarsely chopped pieces of my favorite dark chocolate, along with dry roasted nuts, pumpkins and walnuts.
This cake is delicious on the day it is baked, but also keeps well for a few days when well wrapped, and placed in the fridge. If the bread is a few days old, I like to heat it for a few minutes in a non-stick frying pan, so that it comes back to room temperature — yes, I am not a fan of fridge-cold foods. Then, I also love to pack it whenever I go out for a long walk or cycle, or when I am lucky to be hiking somewhere inspirational.
Well, what can I say? I just hope you will like it as much as I do. I am already planning to make another one for our upcoming weekend getaway.
Nuts, Chocolate and Banana Bread
Banana Bread with Nuts and Chocolate
You need:
Steps:
Ingrédients :
Étapes :
Finally recovering after having my Appendix explode a week ago, I am finally able to get back to sharing the wonderful world of cocktails with you all. Writing this from my hospital bed, I thought it would be fun to see what I could find in the way of Medical or Hospital themed bars and drinks. Good thing themed bars are all the rage.
I found bars in Australia, Japan and one in Singapore named “The Clinic”. The Clinic dresses as doctors and nurses and serve food in syringes, pill form and test tubes. Cocktails with fun names like, Sex on a Drip and Nitro Sangria are cleverly served from an IV bag.
Wow, I wish they had these IVs at my hospital.
The Clinic - Singapore
via ThaiMed.com
Every four years the world gathers for the Olympic Games. In a few short days the Games begin in Beijing, China. To celebrate the folks at Castle Brands created cocktails made with ingredients from the 4 corners if the World. Italian Limoncello, American Bourbon, Irish Whiskey and Bermudian Rum anchor this international cocktail relay. Have a favorite cocktail with and Olympic twist? We want to hear about it. Add your drink to the competition.

Bermuda Torch
1 oz. Gosling’s Gold Rum
½ oz. Amaretto
3 oz. pineapple juice
Splash of grenadine
Build ingredients in a tall glass with ice.
American Relay
3 ½ oz. Jefferson’s Bourbon
1 ½ oz. Pallini Peachcello
2 dashes Angostura bitters
Combine ingredients in a shaker with ice. Strain into a martini glass.
Italian Double Gold
1 oz. Pallini Limoncello
1 ½ oz. Alize Gold Passion
½ oz. lime juice
½ oz. cranberry juice
Shake ingredients and serve on the rocks.
Irish Triathlon
1 oz. Boru Vodka
1 oz. Celtic Crossing
1 oz. Brady’s Irish Cream
Shake ingredients and serve over ice in a rocks glass.
courtesy Castle Brands
On vacation, 5 o'clock pm, having too much fun to realize that nothing has been planned for dinner, fridge mostly empty, remembering that uh oh, I'm the one in charge of feeding my friend's children that night. Oops! Open the refrigerator door, see half a dozen eggs, half a carton of milk, some cheddar cheese, leftover sausage from biscuits and gravy the day before, a little broccoli, a leftover ear of corn (cooked). Open the freezer and see half a loaf of sliced bread. Saved. Whew. The kids will not have boxed Mac-n-cheese for dinner.
Have you ever made a breakfast casserole? The basic ingredients are eggs, cheese, milk, and bread. It's the easiest thing in the world to put together. We have a sausage breakfast casserole on the site that is one of my favorites. The great thing about a breakfast casserole is that you can add almost anything you want to the base. Italian sausage is my all time favorite, but bacon or ham will do too. Or make it veggie, with zucchini, broccoli, basil and onions. The first time I served this to the kids they insisted that it had to go on the website. The name they picked was "Open Fridge Breakfast Bake" because basically that's what I did - opened the fridge, put everything I could find into a casserole dish, and baked it. A few days later we cooked it again (this time Reilly, the 11-year old helped) so we could get some photos. Do you have a favorite breakfast casserole combo? If so, let us know about it in the comments.
Continue reading "As-You-Like-It Breakfast Casserole" »
I spend a good lot of my spring, summer and fall weekends on my friend Jocelyn’s roof. Not only do we get to catch up with friends, drink an unthinkable amount of pink wine and/or Pimm’s cups, shoot awesome pictures of sunsets, Joc has a consummately awesome grill, allowing us all of the summer deliciousness we’re deprived of in our Manhattan apartment. It’s a good deal if there ever was one.
However, some weekends Jocelyn goes out of town. And occasionally, Alex and I have family or other friends to go see. And sometimes, we go a whole two or three weeks without making it onto Joc’s roof, and it makes us very sad. Because we miss the grill.
Which brings me up to the purchase that broke the Smitten Kitchen’s back: our new grill pan. The history of this is that pretty much any time I ever say to Alex, “ooh, look at this [kitchen item]! We should get it!” his standard response is “That’s great, honey. But where will we put it?” To which I respond, “Blah, blah, blah… We’ll FIND a place.” And you know what? We usually do. (Please don’t ask about the wedding cake pans in Alex’s closet. It’s a best-not-touched-on subject.)
But this grill pan doesn’t fit anywhere. And it weighs a metric ton. And it might literally be the first time in Smitten Kitchen history that I will admit that Alex was right: maybe we should have figured out where it went before I bought it. Right now it lives on the floor under the single cart/counter with god-knows-what and its good friend, I’d-rather-not-think-about-it. This is not an ideal long-term solution.
Alex loves limes. I mean, loves them. He eats them, and no, I don’t mean dusted in sugar. No, not squeezed into a glass of seltzer. He simply eats them, the way that most people eat those slices of oranges that come with your fortune cookies at suburban Chinese restaurants. He eats the wedges that people put out on their bars for cocktails, the slices that come on top of a pile of Pad Thai, those on the side of a sizzling fajita platter and the other half I haven’t used in a recipe, lying unloved on the cutting board.
The first time I saw him do it, I was taken aback. “Did you just eat a lime?” Perhaps it was because it was from my gin and tonic, it was an early-on date and he’d obtained it in a “Are you using that?” kind of way. But I loved that he didn’t think it was the least bit odd. I love that now we’ll be at a party or bar and one of our friends will notice his lime-eating ways for the first time and be shocked.
I seriously think they dipped his baby bottle in vinegar. It’s the only logical explanation.
Please welcome guest author Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic who shares his recipe for some of the best cupcakes we've ever had. ~Elise
Most coconut cupcakes are often a bit too dense and flavorless in my opinion, often presenting bland cake with a avalanche of coconut plopped on top. Tired of coconut cupcake posers, I decided to develop a recipe that would really rally in the flavor of coconut in a cupcake. This one uses coconut milk in place of milk, and butter instead of oil, and has shredded coconut through and through giving it a divine taste that puts other coconut cupcakes to shame.
In light of that, the cupcake itself is surprisingly light in texture compared to other coconut cupcakes. The coconut cream cheese frosting enhances the cupcake so each bite is just sweet and exotic, leaving whispers of flavor behind. It is, in my opinion, the ultimate coconut cupcake recipe.
Continue reading "Coconut Cupcakes with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting" »

My definition of success… not eating the chocolate chip cookie dough that has spent the last two days singing its sweet siren song from the back of the fridge. Out of sight, but no where near out of mind.
So I waited 36 hours and baked 12 5-inch cookies. Big cookies. Chewy cookies. Chocolatey cookies. 4 with milk chocolate melting discs, 4 with Tcho Chocolatey, and 4 with Tcho Fruity. What did we think?
The fresh from the oven cookies had more pronounced browning and were good but have you ever had one that was bad? Not me. I actually didn’t think they were anything special - anything more special - just fresh, warm, and chewy chocolate chip cookies.
The day-after and the two-days-after cookies were a bit of a different story. Does anything annoy you more than plopping down $2 in a bakery for a cookie the size of your head that you don’t realize is two days old until you bite into it? Day old cookies are dryer and more bland. These cookies retained that just-baked-today flavor and texture.
Let’s talk about the chocolate.

Santa Claus (aka, The UPS Guy) brought me a couple bars of Tcho chocolate this week. We really liked the Tcho Fruity (Tcho’s newest beta flavor). I hope they don’t change too much because it has a really good bite. The cookies made with the Fruity chunks were our favorites. The Chocolatey cookies were good but the Fruity cookies were better.
Will I go out of my way next time to make the dough 1-2 days ahead… maybe. If I’ve got enough things to do to distract me from the tempting thoughts of chilling homemade cookie dough in the fridge downstairs. I’ll be honest… cookies don’t usually last that long around here anyway.

So that’s it. My un-scientific experiment and once-a-semi-pro opinion. Now go out and have a gigantic chocolate chip cookie today. Reason with your thighs: Bikini season is all but over. It’s okay.
Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 heaping tsp fleur de sel, plus more for sprinkling
12 Tbsp (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg plus 1 yolk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups chopped chocolate of your choice
Whisk flour, baking soda, and sea salt together in medium bowl; set aside.
Mix butter and sugars in stand mixer on medium until well combined, 1-2 minutes. Add egg, yolk, and vanilla, mixing until combined between each addition. Add dry ingredients and beat on low just until combined. Add chocolate, mix until distributed.
Divide dough into thirds and shape into square disks (approx 4-5 inches wide and about 1-1.5 inches thick) on plastic wrap. Wrap tightly and refrigerate for 36-48 hours.
Preheat oven to 325. Remove dough from plastic wrap and cut each disk into four equal squares. Place dough squares onto a silpat- or parchment-lined baking pan (I can squeeze 6 cookies onto a standard-sized baking pan).
Bake until cookies begin to brown on bottom edges, about 20 minutes in my oven. Sprinkle each cookie with a few granules of fleur de sel as soon as they come out of the oven. Cool for 10 minutes on the baking sheet… or until just cool enough enough to not burn your tongue.
Yields 12 cookies
Originally uploaded by Confections of a Foodie Bride.
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Summer is the season for cookouts and potato salad, isn't it? Our standard usually includes pickle juice and hard boiled eggs. Here's a completely different take on a summer potato salad, seasoned with mustard, bacon, and the taste that makes you smile with surprise when you bite into it, chunks of apple. My friend Heidi H made this potato salad for a group of us this week; it's based on a recipe she found recently in the Boston Globe. Everyone who ate it loved the apple, bacon, mustard, potato combo.
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When the good Lord was handing out patience, I was almost certainly standing in front of a dessert case somewhere, tapping my foot and clicking my fingernails while the girl behind the bakery counter too slowly retrieved my pastry.
And where was I when they were handing out will power? Guess.

Earlier this week, Jill tipped me off to an article in the New York times about a subject very near and dear to my heart (and hips): chocolate chip cookies. The pros have decided that one of the secrets to a good cookie is hydration - letting the dough rest for 24-36 hours produces a better cookie than the mix-and-dish method.
I guess it’s simple enough, right? They want me to let the super yummy raw dough from my favorite recipe sit, undisturbed. In my refrigerator. For 36 hours. Riiiiight.
But I am a good sport so I’ll happily play along

The dough went into the fridge in three small batches: 3/4 cup of dough mixed with Tcho Chocolatey, 3/4 cup of dough mixed with Tcho Fruity, and the rest mixed with milk chocolate melting discs (for my husband, of course). All strategically placed behind a batch of cake truffles and none missing so much as a single nibble. I swear. And they shall sit there for a magical 36 hours.
Originally uploaded by Confections of a Foodie Bride.
(c) 2008 Confections of a Foodie Bride. This feed contains copyrighted photographs and text from Confections of a Foodie Bride. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, or at the aforementioned url, the site you are viewing is guilty of copyright infringement.
Stop. No, seriously. Stop everything you’re doing. What are you eating for lunch today? Are you going to one of those delis that will put whatever you want in the salad and mix it with some mysterious, better-not-closely-considered dressing in a squeeze bottle and charge you $10? (Is this a NYC thing, or do they have these everywhere?)(Further, have I waded so far into the NYC bubble that I no longer know what people outside it eat for lunch?) Well, I want you to take a good long look at it and repeat after me: No more deli salads.
Because have you seen this beauty? This should be your lunch tomorrow. This salad dressing is so good. So so so good. Oh, and the salad isn’t half-bad either.
People, I’m in love. Like just about everyone else who bakes, I seem to always have buttermilk left in the fridge, but it’s always too little to make something something frosted and fancy. I had no idea there was such a simple dressing out there that could use it up in half-cup increments, or heck, give you an excuse to buy more because it’s so darn good.
All I’m saying is, don’t say I didn’t warn you, okay?
Noodle Soup with Sugar Snap Peas, Pork and Tofu
The smell of small Italian eggplants simmering with ripe vine tomatoes, garlic and onions, gave a wonderful summery feeling to the entire house.The back door was open and let a nice breathe in. It was still cool at that time of the day; I knew that the heat would hit later on, something I was not looking forward to.
I thought of my mum as I dreamily stirred the vegetables, back and forth: she taught me about the provençal dish I was preparing for my next contribution to the