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Favorite stores I frequent include the Williams-Sonoma located in San Diego’s beautiful outdoor Fashion Valley Mall. Since last fall, I’ve been enjoying their complimentary technique classes conducted by both Heidi and Deborah (see earlier posts Complimentary Technique Classes and Attempted Steaks au Poivre ) which has introduced and inspired some culinary adventures for me. Earli
Summer dinners call for quick and flavorful, using fresh seasonal produce. This pasta meal incorporates crisp, vibrant tomatoes and basil with a kick of pepper flakes.
During warm seasonal weather, want to assemble something fresh and sweet without a lot of fuss, frying, cooking or baking? This beautiful seasonal display of melons is not only eye candy it’s nature’s candy as well. Cantaloupes, Honeydew and Watermelons can provide: Source of Vitamin C (cantaloupe) Source of Vitamin A (cantaloupe) Source of potassium [...]
Banana Strawberry Muffins with Oat Streusel This is another spin on Banana muffins, using seasonal, fresh strawberries. If you’ve been visiting TeenieCakes.com, you may have already caught my fondness for: Baking Muffins Fruit and vegetable based muffins Breakfast type food It’s not to imply that I don’t enjoy cooking or other types of baked goods. That [...]
Don't let the season escape you without enjoying homemade goodness, baking up traditional desserts like peach cobblers.
Popsicles made with fresh fruit, fruit juices and fillings with low to non-fat Greek yogurts. Things to consider before purchasing popsicle molds & benefits of Greek yogurt versus regular yogurts.
Blueberry and Strawberry Buttermilk Pancakes Before you know it, all the fresh berries in abundance at your local farmer’s markets and grocery stores will be out of season. Shop for seasonal berries while they’re at their sweetest and juiciest. While the prices are reasonable, pick up an extra clam shell with the [...]
Dinner doesn't need to be complicated. Adding a side salad with fresh greens, vegetables, nuts and cheeses is not only a healthier choice, it's quickly do-able even after a long day. Summer welcomes lighter fare and the opportunity to enjoy seasonal produce to create a myriad of different salads as either a meal or an accompaniment to larger meals.
Fingerling Potatoes Local markets have made room for sections of colorful fingerling potatoes. More than once, I’ve made a detour with my shopping cart to investigate their interesting shapes and jewel-like colors. Fingerling potatoes are not to be confused with red potatoes or new potatoes. They are smaller, stubby finger-shaped tubers that are described to have a slightly creamy a
Strawberry Walnut Muffins There’s an abundance of luscious, bright red strawberries in the markets right now. Strawberry shortcake, strawberry pie and salads with strawberries flash through my mind of seasonal fruitful summer-time treats. I try to make muffins, scones, etc. at least once a week so that my true better-half has [...]
This week we welcomed the summer season. With the warmer weather, some herbs that were flourishing may start to show signs of stress. The last time I wrote about our fruit and infant herb garden I was excited to share the myriad of herbs we had just added. Everything was growing very well and I [...]
No butter in these scones so the texture is lighter. There's a crunchy brown sugar topping and flavors of ginger.
Banana Macarons with Coconut Cream This month on MacTweets we are creating macarons inspired by a wild animal or “Taking A Walk On The Wild Side“. My macarons weren’t inspired by a wild animal, but instead by adventures to a jungle…a regular Indiana Jones wild adventure! Through the jungle we [...]
Wild Alaskan Salmon with Spinach, Tomatoes & Feta This is a healthy, flavorful and light dish that leaves you feeling satisfied after the meal. It’s an elegant and quick to prepare dinner. We try to include salmon in our diet at least 1-2 times a week. This is just one of the ways [...]
A simple and quick idea for grilling peaches and serving it with a sweet cream on the side.
Winding down from the day and taking a moment or two to sit back and relax with a glass of red wine before dinner is something I look forward to sharing every evening with my true better-half. White wine is considered an apértif in place of a cocktail and enjoyed before the evening meal, but my usual preference is [...]
Rum-Glazed Shrimp and Spinach This last holiday weekend was much cause to close old chapters and welcome new ones. It’s also, most importantly, a day that we should consider it a type of Thanksgiving, if you will. Thankful to the men, women and families that have served and are serving our country so [...]
Pâte à Choux Puffs Serving some of the most elegant of desserts, like éclairs, cream puffs, profiteroles and croquembouches requires mastering the Pâte à choux pastry dough. Other baked uses include crullers, gougères and St. Honoré cake. The same dough can be fried to make beignets and churros. I wrote an earlier post on Chocolate Eclairs and [...]
Smoky Tomato Soup with Cheesy Crostini Serving meals that do not include meats, poultry or fish can sometimes be a challenge for me. Earlier this year I requested to review a book that had just been released by Judith Finlayson – The Vegetarian Slow Cooker: Over 200 Delicious Recipes. The words “Vegetarian” and “Slow Cooker” jumped [...]
Carrot-Zucchini Muffins with Candied Ginger When I saw this recipe entitled with carrots, zucchini and ginger I immediately thought…BINGO! I’ve been looking for a good zucchini bread recipe and I like some versions of carrot cake. These muffins have great flavor that just brim up to the delicately textured crowns. There’s a slight saltiness and the [...]
Blueberry, Banana-Walnut Crumb Muffins I made a couple of changes to the Banana Crumb Muffins I wrote about a couple of months ago. As mentioned in the earlier post, this recipe is from allrecipes.com and has become one of my very favorite recipes for banana muffins. The recipe may require some planning in having very ripe bananas [...]
Camp Blogaway 2010 Attendees Group Photo by Art Ramirez This last weekend I had the opportunity to attend Camp Blogaway, the Bootcamp for Food & Recipe Bloggers, presented by Patti Londre of TLC. The conference took place in Southern California’s beautiful San Bernardino Mountains 7,000 feet up! The weather couldn’t have been more perfect. The day started off mid-morning wi
Garden Fresh – From My Garden Can you name some of the herbs in this image? There’s an indescribable sense of pride and excitement when your overbearing fruit trees are ready to be picked and plucked while the fragrant, deep and healthy colors of your own herbs tantalize your senses as you imagine what you have planned for them in your [...]
Did you catch the May 2nd edition of 60 Minutes featuring Chef José Andrés? The interview, conducted by Anderson Cooper, was enjoyable and interesting to watch as you could feel the Chef’s passion when he describes his philosophies behind ”eating has to be fun”. Chef Andrés runs eight successful restaurants in the U.S, was named GQ’s Magazine Chef of the Year and [..
There is a general misconception by many that Cinco de Mayo is a Mexican Independence Day. Historically, Cinco de Mayo is a celebration of General Ignacio Zaragoza and a mere 5,000 battered Mestizo and Zapotec Indians’ victory over the occupying French forces in what became known as the “Batalla de Puebla” on May 5th, 1862. The “Battle [...]
Chile Relleno Casserole Making true, authentic chile rellenos involves frying. It’s a labor of love and quite a process making them…roasting chiles and preparing them, stuffing the chiles with cheese, flour them and dip in egg mixture, deep fry them and then add to a big pot of sauce. Sometimes we’d be [...]
Chicken Enchiladas Sometimes I just crave a healthy plate (by healthy I mean portion) of homemade enchiladas and rice. It’s a great dish to assemble the next day using leftover chicken or turkey. When serving, I like to have extra enchilada sauce on hand to drizzle some on the rice and even a little more on [...]
Spanish Rice My favorite rice is Spanish rice. Not any and all Spanish rice sides, but my Mom’s rice. Most Mexican restaurants’ rice don’t come close to the texture, flavors and fresh vegetables that make up the rice I now serve at home too. My Mom even makes it with brown rice [...]
Sunshine Award Awarded by Biren of Roti n Rice The Stiletto Award Awarded from Georgia of Comfort Of Cooking – Read more about it here: Stilletto Award Sunshine Award Awarded by Denise of Quickies on the Dinner Table
Besos (Kisses) – A Mexican Sweet Bread I’ve borrowed the recipe to these little Mexican breads, called Besos, from Joseluis Flores’ new cookbook “Dulce: Desserts in the Latin-American Tradition“. There were some slight adjustments. Rather than Besos (which means “kisses”), I’m calling my batch Besitos (“little kisses”) because I mad
I’ve had the Dulce: Desserts in the Latin-American Tradition by Joseluis Flores, in my Amazon.com shopping cart for weeks - about to pre-order (release date: May 04, 2010). I was happily surprised when the publisher forwarded a review copy of this beautiful cookbook. It had to be the power of thought! This new cookbook features flavors of the Latino world [...]
The UPS truck pulled up my driveway rather abruptly last week. That’s not so unusual, except I wasn’t expecting any deliveries. He left me not one, but two mystery packages. I enjoy nice surprises! I’ll share one of the package’s contents in the next post, but in one particularly larger box I received three varieties [...]
I'm doing some necessary blog/site housecleaning and maintenance this weeked on Teenie Cakes so there may be missing images and unexpected behaviors. Please bear with me while I finish tidying up. Have so many fun things to share...looking forward to...
Vanilla and Dulce de Leche (Cajeta) Macarons For the Mac-April (Mac Attack 6) challenge, our macarons were to be influenced by an April holiday. This month many schools observed Spring break. During my childhood it was called Easter break. Even...
Salsa! No canned or jar salsa here! Once you've made fresh salsa, you'll wonder why you ever store-bought this easy condiment. Salsa can be very versatile and ingredients like cilantro (also known as coriander leaves and Chinese parsley) should not...
Vanilla and Dulce de Leche (Cajeta) Macarons For the Mac-April (Mac Attack 6) challenge, our macarons were to be influenced by an April holiday. This month many schools observed Spring break. During my childhood it was called Easter break. Even though I don’t necessarily have a Spring or Easter break to look forward to as [...]
Caramelized Rum Pears There are some beautiful pears in the markets right now. I picked up a rather generous bag at Costco a couple of weeks ago and knew I could find something creative to do with some of these...
Grilled Greek Chicken Kebabs This is going to be one my all-time grilling favorites for a long time. This is a quick, deliciously flavorful, and versatile dish that when served with the Mint-Feta Sauce takes it over the top. Grilling...
Salsa! No canned or jar salsa here! Once you've made fresh salsa, you'll wonder why you ever store-bought this easy condiment. Salsa can be very versatile and ingredients like cilantro (also known as coriander leaves and Chinese parsley) should not be a deal breaker in making your own fresh batch. I was really shocked in a discussi
Mint-Feta Sauce This sauce is very flavorful due to the combination of the mint and feta. It's the perfect accompaniment for some of your chicken and meat dishes. I was considering that it could be a great sauce to add...
Caramelized Rum Pears There are some beautiful pears in the markets right now. I picked up a rather generous bag at Costco a couple of weeks ago and knew I could find something creative to do with some of these pears before they turned bad. The Red Anjou Pears (or Beurré d'Anjou) has a deep red skin that [...]
Grilled Greek Chicken Kebabs This is going to be one my all-time grilling favorites for a long time. This is a quick, deliciously flavorful, and versatile dish that when served with the Mint-Feta Sauce takes it over the top. Grilling and eating outdoors are around the corner for the warmer months ahead. This is the perfect dish [...]
Mint-Feta Sauce This sauce is very flavorful due to the combination of the mint and feta. It's the perfect accompaniment for some of your chicken and meat dishes. I was considering that it could be a great sauce to add to fish tacos! If you like feta, your taste-buds will enjoy these flavors and have you mumbling…"MMMM" [...]
