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This week is the first week of another Gutsy Cook line up. The month of June belongs to Raymond from Your Just Desserts and boy did he bring it with his choices this month – I cannot wait to cook it up in the next 4 weeks. I love, love asparagus, its actually one of my favorite vegetables and my preferred way to eat them is cooked until crisp-tender then tossed in olive oil, sprinkle
While I love cooking savory food, my passion really is baking. Through the years, without even striving for it, I have become the “baker” of the family. We need a birthday cake? Call Monica. A fancy dessert needed? Call Monica. Yes, sweet nothings are my thing. (Psst.. check the blog tittle) But, even thought I felt comfortable baking, I knew I was not a GREAT baker.
May’s Gutsy Cook Recipe Line-up is is posted and ready to be cooked. This month feature Gutsy Cook is Raymond from Your Just Desserts and he is really giving us some amazing options. I think he went a bit retro on us with his cookbooks choices and I’m pretty exited to get my kitchen ready for them. We got a souffle in there and I’m scare of those things, so it will be inter
You are probably wondering how the picture above of Yogurt and Blueberries Paletas (Ice Pops) have anything to do with this. Patience my readers… You know what the best thing about food blogging is? Joining a community that will accept you with open arms. I have meet so many awesome bloggers in the 3 years that I started Sweetbites, and their continue support and inspiration is what
They say that the simple things in life are the most extraordinary. Its true, we take it for granted. Humans are the ones that complicated things. In this case, this recipe cannot be overthought, or over complicated. It is what it is. A fast batter to put together with simple ingredients that I bet, are sitting in your pantry/refrigerator right now. And the end results are a pre
This weeks Gutsy Cook choice used chuck steak as the star of this dish, and then braise it under this rich spicy tomato sauce. The results were simply magical in our house. At the end of a 2-hour oven stay, the meat was pull apart tender, infused with this rich taste of tomatoes with a kick of spice. What could be better than that for a lazy weekend meal? Nothing, it hit the rig
When I was 8 years old my mother sent my sister and I to live with our paternal grandparents. She was coming to the states to prepare our arrival and she decided that our grandparents should spend some time with us before we moved to the United States. My grandparents lived in the state of Zulia, which is located in the northwest of Venezuela, around the Marcaibo Lake. This lake is th
Can you believe that that is the only photo that I have of the food that was served at our wedding? Yep, I was too busy smiling, laughing, dancing, oh yeah, keeping an eye on my new husband that was busting it on the floor with the little man (not so little anymore) and through all that totally forgot to tell my photographers to take some shot of the food. So you guys will have to imagine the Tom
I’m so happy that we started up the Gutsy Cook Club – actually if I’m honest Tom is more excited than anyone, since he now gets to eat “real” food. I have to say for the last couple of months we have eaten crap. Ok, maybe that is a bit extreme, we eat food, but nothing new, mostly dishes that were fast and have been posted on the blog before and frankly T
And we start again - new cooks, new format and new recipes! April’s Gutsy Cook Recipe line up is posted and ready to be cooked. Want to join us? Once a week we cook a recipe from the Gutsy Cook choosen cookbook/magazine recipe. Since this is my month, we are cooking from 2 favorite cookbooks of mine - MAD Hungry and MAD Hungry Cravings from Lucinda Scala Quinn. You guys remember
A couple of weeks ago I was approached by a representative from the Florida Tomato Committee in order to participate in their blogger outreach program. The Committee funds research and development projects and marketing promotions that focus on maximizing Florida tomato movement, including consumer and marketing research and customized marketing programs. In celebration of Fresh Florida tom
This past weekend I stayed at home and decided Sunday my oven was going to go into overtime. I had the bug to be in the kitchen and do some major cooking. And when our big baby – Rufus (the dog) started to bark at 7:00am to be let out, I took that as a sign that I needed to put on the apron and get to work. I started by fixing some baby zucchinis (more on that at a later post) t
It was the kick I needed - So, I’m opening up Gutsy Cooks again. If you been here before you know how that works and if you participated before, you are welcome to come back. If you are new then click over to the rules and see how it works, and join us. If you cannot wait until I post the menu line up for the month - guess what? Start with menus 72-75 from last year, which
Wedding planning is OVER. And I hate to say it, but I’m glad. Except that now I seem to be a bit lost and cannot find my mojo back to do things that are NOT wedding planning related. I need to jump back on the bandwagon and the best avenue to do it is getting back to planning my monthly Chica Brunch. If you are new to Sweetbites - a little recap. Every month, I invit
Tom and I are still recuperating from our wedding. I don’t know how couples have the energy to go on a full pack honeymoon after the wedding. The first 2 days all we did was sleep – we had no energy to do anything else, except sleep and just huddle together in our house and not make any decisions. We were totally exhausted. Our brainpower is still in total shut down
Yes, I know.. I know… I’m still surprise by how people are still visiting me.. the last post was back in Dec 24th - FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, I have become ONE OF THOSE BLOGGERS… The ones that suddenly just poof ! And they are gone. But I promise that is not the case.. I been a tad busy. See in less than 17 days, Tom and I will seal the deal. What deal you say? Well this
So, my birthday get-together was filled with yummy food. Food that I could make in less than 2 hours, because being born 5 days before Christmas is no fun. Everyone, including me, is running around doing errands, wrapping presents, decorating the house, cleaning the house, doing everything but thinking of cooking. I had already done my hot spinach dip. Bought a bunch of cheese to do a
If you love cheese like I do, you are going to like Frico. If you adore a good grilled cheese with those bits of burn cheese edges, then you are going to really, really love Frico. What is Frico? My definition? Cheese gone to greater glory. The layman’s definition? Fried cheese. Don’t believe me? First you go to your stove, make one of these and then come back here and disagree with m
Its on, Steph from KitchenKM has finally convince me that I need to do, you can read all about it in SweetLife
If you been around these parts you know that I’m not a cookie person. I mention that very fact last year when I participating in the first Food Blogger Cookie Swap. So after that, you may wonder why in the world would I sign up again for this years Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap by the amazing duo Lindsay of Love & Olive Oil and Julie of the Little Kitchen. It took me less than 5 minut
I should probably just come right how and say that I’m taking a break with blogging, because it just seems that the last couple of months I start all my post with the boring … “ I been soooo very busy and that is why I have not had time to blog” – we been eating, but, really nothing new, nothing to share. I have made this soup so many times in the last couple
Cachapas are thick, tasty pancakes made from maize (sweetcorn) and served with a slab of white cheese called “queso de mano” (hand cheese). These steaming pancakes are then topped with lashing of margarine, a thick slap of cheese, a pork chop and some chicarron, (fried pork rinds) and washed down with a cold Polarcita (beer). Cachapas are an integral part of Venezuela’s cu
This past Saturday, Steph from KitchenKM organized a little adult road trip south to Sarasota to shop in the newly open Trader Joe’s. For the record – I’m giving the evil eye to the team at TJ that choose Sarasota over Tampa location (I will get over it, eventually, but now I’m a sour puss). If you have a Trader Joe’s near you, you already know what the fuss is
I’m embarrassed but not very surprised to admit that I’m the worst blogger ever. Books and other bloggers tell you that to run a successful blog consistency is rule #1. Not a huge strength of mine. But, my 9-5 job, and other projects outside of the Internet has taken time away from Sweetbites, not because I’m not cooking – I am, in fact, my “Things to post” fol
One of my favorite vegetables is cauliflower. I love it raw, grilled, steamed, sauté and au-gratin, which is my favorite way of preparing it and eating it! But then anything that has cream, cheese and goes under the broiler will have me for life. Just like I been craving corn for the past several weeks (and no, there is no baby in the oven) I started to crave cauliflower too. So in n
And my corn craving continues. This time I reached out to a friend of mine from Mexico, because I remember this great corn bread I had when I use to visit there for work. I remember buying them from the street vendors. Pile high with a handmade sign on top announcing it “hecho en casa” (homemade) After describing to her that wonderful sweet morsel I had, she told me simply
Today I woke up with a craving for corn bread. But I wanted it to be sweet, soft and made with cream of corn. Have I ever mentioned how much I like cream of corn? No? Well then, there you have it, its right up there as one of my all time favorite things to make things with. I have a great cream corn soufflé casserole recipe that I love (so does my family). The thing
Besides cooking the next thing that I love to do is read. When I was younger, I would have my nose in a book pretty much every chance that I could get, which was pretty much every hour that I was not asleep. I was a huge sponge and read everything I could get my hands on. The library became my favorite place, where I would spend hours looking for books to run home so I could open them
This week I felt like eating chocolate. Particularly, chocolate cake. I also was craving coffee. Coffee plus chocolate makes one killer cake. Top that with chocolate buttercream and you got a cake that is a sure winner to anyone that knows chocolate rocks. The catch was that I wanted it now, and I did not want to wait for butter to soften. I hit the Internet and I searched and searched and ended
Dilemma – what to cook for dinner fast? Answer – Fish! Its, fast, and pretty much any flavor will do. This is a quick recipe, one that I put together by simply opening my refrigerator and taking out what ever I had in hand. Around the CP casa of ours, most quick dinner tend to come together in spur of the moment inspiration. My measurements are going to be a bit of this and a bi
There’s not a person in the world who doesn’t love brunch. But you know who loves it the most? Ladies. Chicks. Gals. Women. Whatever you call us, we’re obsessed with brunch. I’m not saying that guys cannot be found partaking in this ritual, but let’s be honest; a pack of ladies yapping away over French toast and eggs is more common. I can write all the reasons why I
It’s official; my chica brunches are now going to happen once a month. We have way too much time to not do them more often and this time around, we had so much fun. This time it was a bit more special, since my best friend was visiting for the weekend and she got to meet my new set of friends. I also had the plus benefit of having a helping hand in putting it all together. Here is my
Or more like a cheating Bagelwich. I could call it an egg sandwich, but the inspiration comes from a bagel. When I lived in Miami, there was this little café close to work, which delivered pretty much 70% of the breakfast for the office staff. The office is located off an island right passed the downtown area, and once you drove over the bridge, the lazy would sit in and there was no
I bet you some of you have never taste Heart of Palms? Or maybe I’m wrong, but if there is a single vegetable that I have encounter that gives people a pause is hearts of palm. Hearts of palm are the inner portion of the stem of the sabal Palmetto, or “swamp cabbage,” palm tree. They have a taste similar to artichokes but look like white asparagus without the tops. They ar
This past Monday was Tom’s birthday. And a couple of weeks ago as we were sitting planning “Tomfest” (as he likes to call it) I asked the question that I was dreading: “So, what do you want me to bake for your birthday?” Notice that I did not say, “What type of CAKE you want for your birthday?” See the cake crazy person in the relationship is me &nd
And my crazy continues to rein supreme around these parts, which mean I have not been cooking at all these past weeks. Unless I can post how to make a awesome grilled cheese. Let me know, because that is what we been eating for the past weeks. But, I promise that I’m getting back to cooking. Soon. But, we been trying our hardest to have some fun. Case in point. Trying to run awa
This chicken salad has been in the making for quite a few years now. When I worked in downtown Miami, many years ago, our offices use to order most of our catering with Perricone’s Marketplace & Café. And my favorite sandwich in the menu was their World famous Chicken Salad. Their version is prepared with golden raisins, roasted pine nuts, granny smith apples, b
The last couple of weeks I have been dealing with some health issues and while everything turned out better than expected, there have been some adjustments, and cooking has been very low in the priority list. That is why Sweetbites has been a bit “dark”, as they say in the theater. Then I took a quick little weekend trip to NYC, to meet up with “my people” to do some major
It’s almost summer, which means that most of us will start cleaning out the grills, the backyards and prepping ourselves to melt under some of that Florida sunshine. Not that we are not already doing that, but we may hold onto a couple of more weeks before we start to venture out of our nice cool a/c comfort. Other than thinking about all the mouthwatering grilled food that we will be makin
My maternal grandmother was a true Italian socialite. She had the most active social life of anyone that I have ever met. When I was growing up spending time with her was going to afternoon coffee dates with her friends. Playing canasta or poker at the country club most of Saturday afternoon and if there was a birthday, wedding, baby birth, baptism or any type of celebration wit
I believe we should all celebrate more often. Not just weddings, anniversaries, milestones and other major moments, but the everyday opportunities – the change of seasons, a new job or just the fact that I love cake! As I always like to point out, when opportunity knocks, answer the door and offer it some food and drinks! And knock it did. A few weeks ago I was approached by the marke
This past week, I had a cake fail moment. It was one of those cakes that you think it totally going to work but upon tasting it’s just not what you thought it was going to be. So, I was cakeless and the bug of eating good cake stayed with me the rest of the week. It was time to find a cake recipe that was labor intensive in order to occupy my Saturday. Found it in February’s iss
This post is going to be short and sweet savory. I was in the kitchen making a salad. And I found myself with left over zucchini. Had a light bulb moment and decided to make some chips out of them. The end. PS: they were good, very good. We are planning on making them again. Here is the short how to: ZUCCHINI CHIPS 1 to 2 zucchini (or more for a crowd) Olive oil Chopped fresh t
I know that some of you were expecting to come here and see all the pretty pictures of the tea party that I hosted this past weekend. And instead you are getting a post about coconut cake. Life is unpredictable guys! The tea party is a sponsor post, which means that I’m on a schedule set by Donsuemor and that post will not go up until the first week of May. But, I promise that this cake is
Yes my Sweetbites cooks, there are more blueberry posts coming your way. Tom and the Mr. D decided to go blueberry picking yesterday and came back with EIGHT POUNDS OF BLUEBERRIES for me to work my magic with. It was time to do same mass baking in order to make sure all EIGHT pounds of them would not go to waste. The pitch started: Me: “Ok, blueberry pie? Blueberry bread?” Tom:
There is something comforting in having something sweet on top of a kitchen island. While I was growing up the only time I experienced this was when I would visit my paternal grandparents. My grandmother would always have snack cakes prepared and ready for anyone to eat if they were in the vicinity of the kitchen – and like a good Italian family – we were ALWAYS in the kit
This is my second attempt at pie. It has been confirmed. I suck at making pies. Tom may disagree. But, he is not the one that has to fight and shout at the stupid pie dough when it comes out of the resting stage in the refrigerator, and instead of being nice and pliable and smooth and silky when rolling out, I get a sticky, temperamental dough. I hate PIE CRUST. I’m 2 to 0 and piecrust is w
Yes, this is a double whammy because you are getting another donut post. After Tom laid praises on the Sweet Potato Donuts, I made the mistake of telling him, that the Bombolini would have been ten times better and he totally dare me to prove it. He knows how I just need to take dares. And I totally fell for it too. I still stand behind my statement before that donuts are not one of m
We all need our veggies, especially someone like me that unfortunately, does not eat enough of them. Do have a favorite veggie? I think I pretty much like all with the exception of brussel sprouts - we just cannot seem to get onboard with each other. If there is a favorite I will have to say carrots. I like them raw, cooked, in salads, cakes, dipped in anything. The same goes for zucchinis, which
You would think that after almost a year of baking with Heavenly Cake bakers I would be prepared for any issues that baking and frosting a cake can throw at me. I was wrong; because the baking gods continue to keep me humble by once in a while just hurling a tiny-itsy bitty curve ball that will explode into a curse fest in my kitchen. It all started when I took a peek at last month’s
