Remember my post about The Tasting of the Rosés party? Where everyone brought a variety of rosé wine and a food pairing? Well, my contribution was Pigmentum Malbec 2010 and this delicious creamed corn empanada with orange-honey drizzle. Big hit! I highly recommend both.
Empanada from Spain and empanada from Latin and South America are similar in concept in that they are both filled-pastries. Where they differ is size. In Spain, empanada is made the size of a cookie sheet or large pizza pan and is meant to be apportioned out. South of the border, they’re made to be eaten individually. You wouldn’t want to share one!
Being half Spanish, I grew up eating the Spanish version…Empanada Gallega with a bacalao (codfish) filling. As an adult, living and traveling in NY, FL, PR and South America, I became very familiar with the handheld version usually filled with ground beef.
Here’s what happened when I melded the 2 traditions — the Spanish filling with the convenience fun of a bite-size treat.
A month or so ago, I was approached by Kalle Bergman to contribute to a new concept in online magazines, Honest Cooking.
From Kalle: It is not run by an established old-media-conglomerate, nor is it a recipe sharing website for traditional forum based foodie interaction. Instead, it is a serious and ambitious new online food magazine, with the goal to feature the absolute cream of the crop of food and wine bloggers and writers. (Blush.) I liked his ambition and I liked his style. A lot!
The magazine launched Monday. As promised, it has interesting articles that are very attractively presented. This is my first contribution.
In the 2+ years I’ve been blogging, I’ve been aware of an event called Weekend Herb Blogging. I’ve admired the posts I’ve seen because, by edict, they include any herb, fruit, plant, flower, or vegetable. “I can do that”, I often thought. And then the moment passed.
This week, the WHB host is Cinzia of Cindystar who is also one of my constant companions on our Culinary Tour Around the World. How could I not support her? Plus I made a delicious lunch for myself this week that fit the criteria perfectly. Continue Reading
More savory than sweet, crunchy rather gooey, and a seemingly simple recipe…this was the perfect baby step for my official foray into baking. Though ‘seemingly simple’, things didn’t go exactly according to the recipe. Do they ever? There was some intended substitution of ingredients — and there were some unintended. Midway, a frantic post went up on a twitter and facebook: SOS – can I substitute egg nog for buttermilk in a cracker recipe? Bought the wrong thing. Some of my foodie friends came to the rescue about mixing regular milk with vinegar. Didn’t help…I had no milk.
Oh, well, I said I wanted to start baking and that I wanted to do it ‘my way’… Continue Reading
I’m still a contender! Thank you for voting me through to the next round of ProjectFoodBlog 2010. I’m ecstatic to be doing what I love…planning, cooking, eating, drinking, photographing and writing. I even gladly suffer the shopping and schlepping to participate. This is Challenge 3.
“Get creative and host a luxurious dinner party where your guests will discover new tastes and exotic flavors…and share some hosting secrets.”
Since food is the most important element of any dinner party, I focused first on the directive “new tastes and exotic flavors“. Pretty quickly I came up with the idea to create a tasting menu sampling the cuisine and wine of the African continent. Once I satisfied that element, I decided to have fun with it and go all out with decorations, music, and regional wines.
Ingileni (come in please) as they say in the Congo. Welcome to my dinner party.
Continue Reading
This is Part 2 to Threading Polenta in Little Italy.
Kind of a mish-mosh of a title, but I forgot to show you what Carolyn did with the leftover polenta. And, as promised, I wanted to show you the 2 delicious bruschettas we served with cocktails — and a Creme Brulee she talked me into making. My first ever! I was surprised how simple it was…though it took 3 sets of hands at different stages. One stirred, one whisked and one torched.
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