This past weekend, my parents threw a surprise birthday party for my sister, and asked that I make a “punch” for the party. I’m not exactly a punch fan, but I love big batch cocktails, especially this recipe for a Rosé Aperol Spritz!
This one is perfect for the warm weather. It’s a play on a traditional Aperol Spritz, which is made with Prosecco, Aperol, and club soda.
This version, adapted from this Bon Appetit recipe, uses sparkling rosé instead of Prosecco, and “waters” it down a bit for easy drinking with some passion fruit juice and blood orange soda.
Aperol is an Italian liqueur made with oranges, gentian, rhubarb, cinchona and other ingredients that has a slightly sweet orange flavor with a touch of balanced bitterness.
Passion fruit juice can be found in the box juice section of your grocery store. Or, feel free to substitute in another juice of your choice.
I’m on a bit of a feta kick at the moment. I absolutely love French feta, which is a bit more mild and creamier than the more tangy, crumbly version most people associate with feta cheese.
When I came across a recipe for Feta Dip, I loved the concept, and knew French Feta would be perfect for it.
This dip is a nice alternative to the normal dips found at parties. The flavors are similar to tzatziki; serve with toasted pita or pita chips.
Ingredients:
12 oz French feta
1 cup non-fat plain Greek yogurt
8 oz cream cheese, softened to room temperature
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
I’m so impatient weather-wise in the spring. I want it to warm up immediately, but that’s not exactly how this season goes.
Although today is supposed to be quite nice, some spring nights can be rainy and down right chilly. So it’s nice to have a comforting meal available for colder nights that still makes use of ingredients readily available in the spring.
This Slow Cooker Spring Lamb Stew is a Greek-inspired dish is made in a slow cooker, so dinner will be ready for you when you return from work. It also freezes well, so you can enjoy it whenever the weather calls for a yummy stew.
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 and 1/2 pound lamb shoulder, cut into bite-sized pieces
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice (I used 6 allspice berries; I was out of ground allspice)
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1/2 pound shallots, peeled and quartered
1 pound baby new potatoes
1/2 pound carrots, peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces
But I’m sick of waiting for spring to arrive to make delicious spring food!
So this recipe for Spinach Lemon Ricotta Pasta has spring ingredients that are still comforting in chilly weather – spinach with a lemony ricotta sauce over fettuccine.
I realized this weekend as I was making some of my favorite St. Patrick’s Day foods that I have not written a post on Colcannon!
Colcannon is mashed potatoes with sautéed greens mixed in, typically either cabbage or kale.
It’s pretty awesome Irish comfort food in my opinion. It’s so engrained in Irish cooking that it even has it’s own song!
Did you ever eat Colcannon, made from lovely pickled cream? With the greens and scallions mingled like a picture in a dream. Did you ever make a hole on top to hold the melting flake Of the creamy, flavoured butter that your mother used to make?
This version uses shallots, leeks, and kale, but this recipe can easily be adapted to incorporate any green you prefer.
I’m sure this happens to everyone: you go out and buy ingredients for a specific recipe, but then are left with “extras” from that recipe. Normally, it’s not a big deal and you can just incorporate it easily into another recipe. But when I went to make Sheet Pan Paella recently, my supermarket was only selling 50 packs of clams. That’s a lot of clams!
To use them up, I decided to make Linguine and Clams, but used what I had on hand to make it work. So, technically, I made spaghetti and clams. And it tasted just as good. 🙂
I love the relative simplicity of this dish. It also reminds me of my grandpa; linguine and clams were his favorite. So I was surprised that I hadn’t posted a recipe for Linguine and Clams on my blog yet. Time to fix that!
I adapted this version of Linguine and Clams from Bon Appetit.
Ingredients:
1 heaping tablespoon salt
12 garlic cloves, divided
4 oz day old bread, cut into smaller pieces (I used half of a sandwich roll)
2 tablespoons plus 1/4 cup olive oil
the zest of one lemon
2 teaspoons anchovy paste
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/3 cup dry white wine
2 dozen clams, scrubbed
1 (16 oz) box linguine (or spaghetti)
1/2 cup chopped parsley (I randomly had curly parsley on hand. Flat works too)
Over the last few years, my husband and I have moved too many times. Since 2014, we have lived in five different apartments/houses. Somehow in one of those many moves, I lost (or threw out) my paella pan. Sigh.
Paella is a favorite of mine. I love the combination of crispy rice, seafood, and spice. So when I saw this Epicurious recipe for a sheet pan version, I knew I had to try it.
I didn’t exactly stick to the original recipe, given what I could find in my post-snow supermarket. But one of the best parts about paella is you can basically throw in whatever you may have on hand to make the recipe yours! So here’s my adapted version – Sheet Pan Paella!
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup rice
1 3/4 cups chicken broth
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
3/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/8 teaspoon saffron, crushed
1 1/2 teaspoons salt, divided
2 links of Spanish chorizo (about 6 oz)
1 shallot, thinly sliced
6 ounces medium shrimp, peeled, deviened, tails left intact
~2 dozen clams, scrubbed
1 (14 oz can) fire roasted diced tomatoes, drained
My mom and I just had a weekend of cookie baking. We ended up making ten different types of cookies!
We actually ended up making these thumbprint cookies because I misinterpreted what type my mom wanted to make. She mentioned wanting to make cookies with hard candies in them, and I decided that meant thumbprint cookies. Oops.
Anyways, who doesn’t like thumbprint cookies? They are really easy to make, and the shortbread combined with preserves is so tasty!
Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar, plus more for rolling
1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract
2 cups flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
your favorite preserves, jam, or jelly (I used apricot and berry preserves)
This Freezable Ratatouille is another recipe my friend and I made last weekend during our cooking marathon. This time of year is perfect for making a huge batch of ratatouille and freezing it!
Ratatouille is a produce-heavy dish, using eggplants, zucchini, onions, and peppers. My friend doesn’t really love eggplant, so I used fairy tale eggplants which are smaller, with thinner skins and are a bit sweeter than regular eggplants.
This Freezable Ratatouille also allows you to do a lot of the prep work ahead of time. The vegetables are cooked separately, so prep work does go into a bunch of bags, but it makes the cooking process much easier. We used a recipe from The Kitchn as our base.
Ingredients (makes 8 to 10 servings):
2 medium yellow onions, chopped
3 medium green bell peppers, chopped
6 to 8 medium zucchini, cut into bit sized pieces
4 large tomatoes, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 fairy tale eggplants
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 bay leaf
4 sprigs fresh thyme
1/4 cup basil, sliced into ribbons, plus more for garnish
Spaghetti Alla Carbonara is the definition of simple, elegant decadence.
Carbonara is typically made with pork fried in olive oil, grated hard cheese, raw eggs, and pasta. Versions use pancetta or bacon for the pork, pecorino romano or parmigiana reggiano for the cheese, and spaghetti, linguine or fettuccine for the pasta.
With just a few (ok, 6) ingredients, you can make this oh so delicious recipe.
I made a more traditional version of this, using a Mario Batali recipe as my inspiration.
Note: This post for Meatballs in Tomato Sauce is sponsored by Moyer Beef. All opinions are mine alone.
Sunday night in my house is pasta night, which almost always means pasta with a meaty tomato sauce. I tend to make Meatballs in Tomato Sauce in batches about once a month and freeze it for future Sundays.
It’s funny, I make this Meatballs in Tomato Sauce recipe all the time and yet
I had no clue what measurements I was putting into my sauce, and
never posted the recipe to my blog!
Continuing my partnership with Moyer Beef, I decided it was about darn time I actually figured out what exactly I make every month and to share it on here.
These meatballs are half ground beef and half hot Italian sausage. It adds a touch of heat to the overall sauce without being actually spicy.
Ingredients:
Meatballs:
1 lb 80% lean ground beef (I used Moyer Beef’s 81% lean ground beef chuck)
Excuse the lack of posts, my husband and I went to Montreal and Quebec City last week, so no cooking for me! Both Montreal and Quebec City are pretty amazing food cities, and I definitely made to eat my way through both. (And yes, we somehow managed to have poutine four times!)
Needless to say, when we returned to Philly, we both were looking to eat a bit… lighter.
This recipe adapted from Cooking Light for Shaved Cucumber Greek Salad is a simple but different take on a traditional Greek salad. It looks fancier than it really is, the only special tool needed is a veggie peeler.
Ingredients:
2 cucumbers
1 large heirloom tomato, cut into wedges
2/3 cup pitted Castelvetrano olives
1/2 cup sliced green onions
1/3 cup feta cheese, crumbled (I suggest using French feta)
Tomorrow is one of my favorite events of the year: Flavors on the Avenue! I’ve written past posts about this event, but this year, they are switching things up a bit. The event, usually held under a tent, is coming out onto the street to make for what should be a pretty awesome five block street festival tomorrow, April 30 from noon to 5 pm. The event will be held around the Singing Fountain at the intersection of S 11th, Tasker and Passyunk.
Tickets aren’t required to attend the event, although they are strongly encouraged. Cost is $50 each and include all of the dishes, two glasses of beer or wine, and valet parking – a $130 value. You can also pay as you go; each dish will be priced at $3 to $6. Further details can be found here.
East Passyunk Avenue is known for its fantastic restaurants, and a bunch of them (27!) are participating in this event. There will also be free kids’ activities and a crafter’s market. Here is a list of participants and the food they will be serving: (note: options shown in photos above are in bold)
Bing Bing Dim Sum: Pork Buns, Corn Rangoon
Birra: Pizza slices, plain and pepperoni
Brigantessa: Chorizo Cotto with whipped ricotta and peas
Cantina los Caballitos: Tacos al Pastor, Elote, Classic and Cucumber Margaritas
Chhaya: Fried chicken and waffles, Iced coffee
El Sarape: Tacos al Pastor, Pina Coladas
Fond: Salmon Tartare with sesame, nori and avocado
Izumi: Pork Gyoza
Laurel: Chocolate egg cream pudding pops
Le Virtu: Octopus and chick pea salad
Mamma Maria: Cheese ravioli
Marra’s: Mozzarella pizza
Noir: Arancini balls, watermelon salad
Noord: Bitterballen (Dutch meatballs with nutmeg and mustard)
Paradiso: Arancini Di Riso
Perla: Pork Belly, Adobo with garlic rice
Plenty Cafe: Choripan (Traditional South African sandwich with chorizo, chimichurri, and pickled red onion on a baguette)
Will BYOB: Caramelized onion crepes, Banana and caramel crepes
I had the opportunity to go on a media tour a try a bunch of these bites. Noord’s Bitterballen remains one of my favorites (they serve it every year, and every year I love them). New to Flavors is Sate Kampar, and all of their offerings are fantastic! Absolutely go try the Achat, Sago Hula Melaka, and Chicken Sate.
One of the restaurants on the media tour was Brigantessa. If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen my high praise for their Charred Ramp Arancini. They were absolutely delicious. Unfortunately, Brigantessa is not serving these for Flavors, but is serving Chorizo Cotto with Whipped Ricotta and Peas that sounds right up my alley as well. There will be plenty of arancini available though, a few restaurants are serving it.
I wanted to try my hand at making the Brigantessa Aracini, so here goes! I adapted this recipe to include charred ramps, which adds a slight onion flavor to the cheesy rice ball.
Today is Good Friday, which means it’s about time I shared a recipe for Hot Cross Buns!
Hot Cross Buns are a sweet slightly spiced bun with dried fruit. A cross made of icing is piped on top. They are traditionally made and served on Good Friday as a way to break the fasting associated with Lent. There are a bunch of superstitions surrounding hot cross buns. My favorite is that gifting a hot cross bun on Good Friday guarantees friendship between the recipient and gift giver for the year.
Hot Cross Buns aren’t exactly the easiest recipe; it took me most of the day to make them because you need time to let the dough rise. But these tasty little guys are worth it.
One of my favorite parts of this blog is challenging myself to use new and different ingredients and/or new and different techniques. So when I was contacted to participate in CFE’s International Saltfish Blogger Recipe Challenge, I jumped at the chance.
So what exactly is saltfish? It is fish, typically cod, pollock, or other white fish cured with dry salt to preserve it. This method of preservation dates back centuries, as it helped preserve fish without refrigeration.
CFE International offers a number of brands of salt fish: Buena Ventura, Cristobal, BacalaRico, and Isla Brisa. For this challenge, I was sent some Isla Brisa Salted Alaska Pollock Fillets to use in a recipe. (You can find these brands of saltfish in your local Cousins, H-Mart, Jetro, Price Chopper, and Price Rite supermarkets.)
I decided to do a spin on Brandade (Whipped Salt Fish Spread), a salt fish spread popular in Mediterranean countries. It’s also known as Brandada in Spain, and Baccala Mantecato in Italy.
The spread is whipped salt fish, potatoes, olive oil, and cream with seasoning and is served with crusty bread. My version below adds in some roasted garlic, caramelized onions, and horseradish to add new layers of flavor.
