Salsa de tomate frito

Ever since living in Spain, attending my first and only lesson at a cooking school there, and being obsessed with El País’s food blogger El Comidista, I’ve been into making Spanish food. With a stack of recipes from the cooking school and countless ones online, I’ve been able to make everything from croquetas to gazpacho. Still, one of my favorite dishes has always been pisto manchego.

Christmas Cookies Galore!

Since it's Christmas time and I have managed to post all the Christmas cookies I have for this year, here's a compilation of this year and last year's goodies.  I hope you'll enjoy them and end up adding one, two or all four to your Christmas cookie list. Merry Christmas!

Sandwich Cookies

Rum Balls

Vanilla Bean Sugar Cookies

Butterballs/Mexican Wedding Cakes/Russian Tea Cookies

Vanilla Bean Sugar Cookies

It’s week two of December and time for another round of Christmas cookies. These next ones are the perfect sugar cookies for cutouts. With the use of an actual vanilla bean to make the dough they have lots of flavor as opposed to the plain sugar cookie cutouts you’re probably used to.

Sandwich Cookies for Christmas

Warning: If you make these cookies you’ll probably end up making them every year for the rest of your life.

Double Layer Stout Cake with Chocolate Buttercream

Apparently, November 26th, is National Cake Day. Who knew?

I have no clue why and I am especially unsure why they would put this holiday anywhere near Thanksgiving, but that’s no excuse for not participating. And if you do, make this cake.

Apple Cake

I knew my mother was setting the bar high when she said someone proposed to her over this cake.

It was something of a joke, tossed out as “I will marry whoever made this cake”.  Regardless, it should be taken as a sign that 1) my mom is amazing baker and 2) this is a damn good cake.  So while no proposals emerged from my production of this cake, it still received lots of high marks from my friends for being moist and yet crunchy on top.

Quinoa Casserole

I could eat quinoa every day. Seriously.

Ever since I discovered quinoa when I was in college, I’ve been unable to get enough of it.  This fact makes it shocking to me that I don’t have more recipes that use quinoa on this blog.  Maybe it's because I gobble it down before it can be photographed, I’m not sure, but this post is here to fill the gap with the tastiest quinoa you’ve ever had, hands down.

An uncommon post

The beautiful garden leading away from the event in Ala, Italy (Photo Credit: Michael Babich)

Though I typically writes posts about food, I felt like writing a post about wine after going to a great wine tasting last weekend so I apologize to any of my readers who are sad there are no recipes in this post.  I'll get back to the recipes soon, I promise!
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Through a strange set of coincidences, having nothing to do with the fact that I work in wine, last weekend I found myself at a wine tasting in Ala, Italy, a short train ride away from Trento where I’m currently living. More casual than most of the wine events I’ve attended, (read: I didn’t have to stumble around in heels at this one) it was still one of my favorites for several reasons. First off, it was free (need I say more?). Second, the quality of the wines at the event was top notch.  Third, I finally got to enjoy some wines from Trentino Alto-Adige, a luxury I have not been able to afford since coming to Trento because of the expensive price of wine.

Orange Sour Cream Cake

It was an important evening for the Memeoirs crew.  After months of hard work at the Tech Peaks accelerator, they’d finally released the newest version of their amazing site which allows you to create a book from your emails.  If you’re an emailer, or know one, definitely check it out (www.memeoirs.com)!

To celebrate the new release we were having dinner at Ivan and Simone’s place (other Tech Peakers) and I knew that I should make a dessert.  I had some oranges on hand, leftover from something I’d wanted to make but never got around to, and decide to repurpose them for this recipe.

Fresh Fig Tart

I realize I haven't written in over three months, but this afternoon, as I searched for a recipe I hope to make soon, I remembered one of the reasons why I actually started this food blog.  I wanted a convenient way to recall the recipes I really liked and want to make again.  For me, it comes in handy that I can just type in the name of my blog, go to the Recipe Box where all the recipes I’ve ever posted are listed, and find what I’m looking for.  Now, I’ll add this delicious fig tart to the list.

More than a month ago we took a trip to Vicenza, to Giacomo’s parents house, to find a bounty of fruit and vegetables, all ripe for the picking.  The fruits, at this time, were the ones most begging to be picked and none more so than the dark delicious figs that hung from two tall trees next to the house.

The Softest Scrambled Eggs. Ever.

Okay, I know I said I’ve been baking a lot lately, which is true, but here’s just one more breakfast recipe which I’ve been meaning to post for a while.

They are the softest eggs you will ever eat.  Ever.  Seriously.  If you make them correctly, they’re amazing.  And they’re simple.  They just take a bit of patience, and trust me, it will pay off.

The Best Berry Smoothie

So...clearly I’ve been slacking on the food blog lately. I’ll blame it on a combination of moving to Lisbon, Portugal (my favorite city in the world thus far), work and just general life. Regardless, I’ve made many recipes in the meantime and therefore have a backlog of tasty dishes (okay, okay, mostly desserts) to share with you all, my tiny readership.

Now, however, I’m posting a tasty, but simple, smoothie recipe which I suppose falls under the breakfast category. Whenever I’ve made this smoothie I’ve gotten great reviews and people are always shocked by the ingredients, especially the one which makes this so creamy. Avocado. Avocado in a smoothie, you ask? Why yes, avocado in a smoothie.

Easter Surprise Cookies!

I can’t believe it’s almost Easter!  How did that happen?  It’s coming up in less than 2 weeks now so I’ve decided to pre-empt the Easter season and give you all this great recipe to try.

Cookie Dough Dip

The Superbowl. What is it all about to Americans? Obviously, eating. You thought I was going to say football, right? Well it’s not. At least not for this American. I’ve never been a huge fan of football but thanks to my good friend Kyle, I at least now know the logistics and can understand the game. But the food remains the most important part.

Chocolate Swirl Cheescake Brownies

I first made this recipe with Omar.  They were for a party we were going to and Chris, who could not be there, insisted that there would be a subset of people specifically looking for me just to see what I had made. I laughed at him but it turns out that he wasn’t too far off.

The 50th Post! (Chocolate Mudslide Cookies)

Report: first chocolate craving of the day
time: 9:58 am.
Solution: 3 chocolate chip cookies
resolved: 10:01am