Whiskey Cake is something that has shown up to family gatherings since before I can even remember. My mom makes this cake for basically all extended family celebrations, and it has become a favorite of mine. Recently, we were celebrating a friend’s birthday and I thought a Walnut Whiskey Cake would be the perfect birthday cake for him!
My version is a bit different than the one my mom makes, but the general gist is still there. I added some candied walnuts on top because, why not, but feel free to omit them.
The best part of this recipe is it is made with cake mix and instant vanilla pudding mix, making this cake both super easy to make and incredibly moist! Using a Bundt pan makes this cake look like it took you all day to make, but the hardest part of this recipe is patiently waiting for the glaze to soak into the cake before removing it from the Bundt pan.
My mom’s birthday was earlier this week and I wanted to make her a treat to celebrate. She might be citrus’ biggest fan, so I knew I had to incorporate a couple of citrus components into it. This Citrus Poppy Seed Pound Cake was the result!
This post is #sponsored by LongHorn Steakhouse. All opinions are my own.
With summer in full swing, it’s time to get grilling! As I’ve mentioned before, I unfortunately do not have any outdoor space at my apartment for a grill, but that hasn’t stopped me! I use my trusty grill pan as often as possible to bring the flavor of summer indoors.
This yummy recipe for Grilled Citrus Salmon was sent to me by LongHorn Steakhouse, and a version of this is actually available in their restaurants as part of their Summer Chef’s Showcase menu. I adapted it slightly to include ingredients I had on hand, so be sure to stop in to your local LongHorn Steakhouse to try their version as well!
As we all head out to grill this July 4th, LongHorn Steakhouse will have their Grill Us Hotline open Thursday, July 2 through Saturday July 4 from noon to 5 pm to answer grilling questions via phone and text. At-home grillers can call 1-855-LH-GRILL or text LHGRILL to 40679 (wait for a response & follow the prompts) to be connected with a grilling expert to answer questions live in real-time.
LongHorn Steakhouse was also kind enough to offer to give away a LongHorn Steakhouse Summer Grilling Party Pack to one winner! The grilling pack includes various grilling tools, koozies for your outdoor grill-out and a $25 gift card to visit LongHorn Steakhouse. More details after the recipe.
Ingredients:
Salmon
4 (7-oz.) salmon fillets
Salt and Pepper, to taste
8 oz. crumbled feta cheese
1 tablespoon freshly chopped parsley
Citrus Glaze
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons fresh orange juice
salt and pepper, to taste
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1 tablespoon freshly chopped flat-leaf parsley
Summer Vegetables and Pearl Couscous
4 cups cooked Israeli (pearl) couscous (~1 cup dry)
I live in an apartment that has no outdoor space, so we clearly do not have access to a grill, which is causing me to only want grilled food! Luckily, I have a grill pan so I can get my fix, and I’ve been using it nonstop!
A really simple weeknight favorite of mine is to grill up some shrimp and serve over rice. This recipe is quick and easy to make, but delivers on flavor! Blue Chair Bay Rum sent me a bottle of their Coconut Rum that I knew would be perfect for a glaze on grilled shrimp. The glaze caramelizes beautifully, adding a nice char and sweetness to the shrimp.
I adapted this recipe from a Cooking Light recipe, adding more hints of coconut to play off of the Blue Chair Bay Coconut Rum.
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
the juice of one lime
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 garlic clove, minced
24 jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined (about 1 1/2 pounds)
6 sugarcane swizzle sticks, each cut into 2 pieces
My boyfriend loves peaches so I am always keeping an eye out for any recipe that incorporates peaches into it. This recipe from Cooking Light not only included peaches two ways, but it also used a wheat product I’ve never used before: bulgur.
Bulgur is a fast cooking whole grain that’s been parboiled, dried, and cracked. One cup of bulgur is only 150 calories and includes 8 grams of fiber and almost 6 grams of protein. Sounds like a good addition to any meal!
Ingredients:
1 1/3 cups water
3/4 cup uncooked bulgur
2 tablespoons canola oil, divided
2 1/2 tablespoons white wine vinegar, divided
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
1 teaspoon grated peeled fresh ginger
2 cups chopped peaches
1/4 cup thinly sliced green onions
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
1 ounce goat cheese, crumbled (about 1/4 cup)
4 (6-ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
Here’s another delicious dessert I made for New Years Eve – Brownie Petit Fours. (You can read about my New Years Eve party and get a recipe for Honey Citrus Champange Cupcakes here) The original BHG recipe included bourbon, but I already had Bourbon Truffles on the menu so I decided to go without it in this recipe.
I was a little wary of making these little guys, petit fours seem pretty difficult to make. But I was surprised with how simple it was to make these!
Ingredients:
BROWNIES
1/2 cup butter
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons coffee grounds (I measured them out from a k cup)
Recipes can tell you a lot about the time period in which they were written. I have always been interested in how recipes change over time to meet tastes, availability and personal income. A few months ago, I went to an event at the Historical Society of Philadelphia about a Civil War era cookbook they found within their documents. The cookbook, written by Ellen Emlenwas written around 1865 and is really well organized, especially for the time. Mrs. Emlen, a Philadelphia housewife, put a lot of time into the cookbook, organizing it into thirteen categories including over 200 recipes.
Some of the fun facts that I learned:
If you think Americans have a sugar problem now, you should see some of the amounts of sugar that used to go into recipes! Most recipes would have to be altered to include less sugar to make palatable to us today.
Despite their not so wallet-friendly prices now, oysters used to be “poor man’s food” in nineteenth century Philadelphia. The Delaware River used to be teeming with them! Because of that, there are some ridiculous-sounding recipes for things like “how to pickle 1,000 oysters”
It’s quite amazing how some things haven’t really changed. There is a recipe for eggnog in the book that is comparable to today’s recipe.
The affluent families of Philadelphia (Mrs. Emlen included) really had a thing for saffron. So many dishes include it in the ingredients!
The event was really interesting and we all were given a copy to take home with us! (Expect some posts including adaptations of her recipes in the future).I also picked up another book while I was there, 35 Recipes from “The Larder Invaded”, which also included historical recipes from local Philadelphians. I used a recipe from that book for this Blackberry Pudding, with a few slight changes.
I’m sure some of you just looked at that photo and thought to yourself “that is NOT pudding.” It’s actually an English pudding. Although in the U.S., pudding is usually a milk-based custard type dessert, pudding in the United Kingdom can be used for any sweet dish after dinner (think: Christmas pudding or “figgy pudding”).So, this recipe is actually more of a bread or cake.
Ingredients:
1 pint almond milk, plus more for glaze
3 1/2 cups flour plus more for dredging the blackberries
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
1 tablespoon melted butter or margarine to make dairy free
2 heaping teaspoons baking powder
1 pint blackberries
powdered sugar
To make this recipe a bit more my own, and bring it into the 21st century, I decided to try this with Vanilla Almond Milk. I thought it might add a nice extra flavor to the whole dessert. Feel free to use normal milk.
Beat the eggs together until light.
Add the almond milk and flour and mix to combine. Add the melted butter, salt and baking powder and mix to combine.
Wash the blackberries and dredge in flour.
Add the blackberries to the pudding and mix to combine.
The original recipe wanted me to put the batter into a pudding tin (I have no idea what a pudding tin is) and then place that in a pot with some boiling water and cook it this way, replenishing the water when needed, for 3 hours. Yep. Not happening.
Instead, I preheated my oven to 350, added the batter to some Pyrex bowls (I used one medium and one small to use all the dough) and baked them for 40-50 minutes.
Because I have a ridiculous sweet tooth, I decided to add a little bit of a glaze to the top of the dessert. Combine 2 parts powdered sugar to 1 part milk. (I made 1 tablespoon powdered sugar to 1.5 teaspoons almond milk).
So how was it? Delicious of course! Look at that beauty!
I was a bit afraid of how this would turn out because I messed with the method of preparation. But it looks fine to me! I enjoyed the glaze on top to give it an extra pop of sugary goodness. The blackberries were nice and tart, so it was a good contrast. I was really happy with the almond milk in it as well!
Best thing about this recipe is that it can easily be adapted to include any kind of berry you choose. It’s a wonderful base recipe to let your creativity run wild.
I actually had a really hard time taking these photos; I kept trying to eat the pudding!
3 1/2cupsflourplus more for dredging the blackberries
1/2teaspoonsalt
3eggs
1tablespoonmelted butter or margarine to make dairy free
2heaping teaspoons baking powder
1pintblackberries
powdered sugar
Instructions
Beat the eggs together until light.
Add the almond milk and flour and mix to combine.
Add the melted butter, salt and baking powder and mix to combine.
Wash the blackberries and dredge in flour.
Add the blackberries to the pudding and mix to combine.
The original recipe wanted me to put the batter into a pudding tin (I have no idea what a pudding tin is) and then place that in a pot with some boiling water and cook it this way, replenishing the water when needed, for 3 hours.
Instead, I preheated my oven to 350, added the batter to some Pyrex bowls (I used one medium and one small to use all the dough) and baked them for 40-50 minutes.
Let cool.
To make the glaze, combine 2 parts powdered sugar to 1 part milk and drizzle over the pudding while it cools.
One of the huge downsides of my pumpkin obsession is that most of the sweets made with pumpkin really should be eaten in moderation (something I am not capable of adhering to). So I am always in search of a way to lighten the calorie intake of those desserts so that I can still enjoy them without feeling terribly guilty afterwards.
Kelly from Eat Yourself Skinny recently had a post trying out a new buttery spread called Melt with rave reviews. Luckily, Melt graciously sent me two packages of their organic buttery spread for me to try out as well!
So what exactly is melt and what makes it different from other butter substitutes? Melt contains virgin coconut oil, flax seed oil, palm fruit oil, and canola oil — all healthy cooking oils and “good fats.” Typical buttery spreads are made of hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils, which have been liked to obesity, heart disease, etc. Melt is also organic, gluten free, soy free, kosher, and has 50% of the saturated fat and fewer calories than butter. Whew.
Melt’s, well, melt point is close to original butter’s melting point, making it perfect for baking. Typical buttery spreads usually have a lower melting point, which means they tend to separate during the baking process resulting in a flat cookie. So what better way to really test out Melt’s best qualities than making a batch of Skinny Iced Pumpkin Cookies? I adapted this recipe from AllRecipes.com.
Are you ready for the easiest salmon recipe, perhaps ever? The name says it all: maple-soy glazed salmon. You just use equal parts maple syrup and reduced sodium soy sauce.
Ingredients:
2 pieces of 5 oz salmon fillets, skin on
2 tablespoons maple syrup
2 tablespoons reduced sodium soy sauce (or coconut aminos to make gluten free)
salt and pepper, to taste
Combine the maple syrup and soy sauce.
Top the salmon fillets with salt and pepper.
Drizzle the maple-soy mixture equally over the salmon.
I bought my salmon from a supermarket in Wilmington that inexplicably only had salmon without the skin. What the heck? Normally, I would just grill the salmon, skin side up for 2-3 minutes and then flip the salmon, skin side down and cook until done. Because we had to take into account the whole no-skin issue, we wrapped the salmon in tin foil and popped it on the grill for a good 10 to 15 minutes. (Special thanks to Kevin and Tim for doing the actual grilling part!)
It still turned out great! The sauce caramelizes a bit, adding some sweetness to the salmon. I really wish it could have been straight on the grill to add some charring but it was not to be. Sigh. If anyone gets the chance to actually try it this way, please let me know how it turns out!
There were a couple of parts to this recipe that made me nervous to try it out: working with fresh ginger and using the broiler. The latter ended up being the more difficult part, but that was due to my all-encompassing fear of burning the beef tenderloin steaks. Overall though, this dish was a lot easier than I made it out to be. I followed this recipe almost exactly, but the original is linked here.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons grated peeled fresh ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons honey
1 1/2 teaspoons lower-sodium soy sauce (or coconut aminos to make gluten free
1/4 teaspoon chili garlic sauce (such as Lee Kum Kee or Huey Fong)
3 (4-ounce) beef tenderloin steaks, trimmed (1 inch thick)
Cooking spray
1/8 teaspoon salt
Hoisin sauce and the chili garlic sauce can be found in the Asian section of your grocery store. Getting to a supermarket for me is kind of a pain but I was able to find the sauce in my corner store.
Before doing anything, preheat your broiler to high. If you’re like me and have zero clue what the broiler even is, chances are it’s within your oven and you just need to press the “broil” setting. Be sure to remove everything from the oven before turning it on.
Broiling is basically the opposite of grilling—the heat source is coming from above instead of below. Because the heat is so high, really keep an eye on anything you are broiling; it can burn very very quickly. Also be sure to have an oven mitt that can withstand high temperatures. The broiler may cause some smoke so be sure to turn your exhaust fan on during cooking. Ok, time to actually start cooking…
Ginger root is much easier to work with than I imagined. It looks so intimidating but I’m glad to have this ingredient on hand—it can be used to treat nausea and is also known to have anti-inflammatory properties. The root can be wrapped in plastic and refrigerated or frozen for long term use.
Boo! …See? Very intimidating
To work with ginger root, use a peeler to peel off the bark-like outer layer for the area you’ll be using. You will begin to smell ginger almost immediately. Yum.
Cut the peeled area off. You can either mince the ginger root with a knife or use a grater. As a warning, the root has a lot of juice to it and can get a bit slippery so be careful of your fingers. I may or may not have lost a piece of ginger when it slipped out of my hands and few across my kitchen. Whoops.
Fresh Grated Ginger
To prepare the hoisin glaze, combine the hoisin sauce, ginger, honey, soy sauce and chili garlic sauce in a small bowl using a whisk to combine. Set this aside.
Hoisin Glaze
The original recipe suggested putting the steaks on a foil-lined broiler pan. I somehow ran out of foil, so I just put them on a broiler pan coated with cooking spray but for cleaning purposes, I’d suggest using the foil. Sprinkle the steaks with salt.
Place the pan into the oven 5 inches from the heat (so 5 inches from the top of the oven… probably around the middle rack). Cook for 2 minutes and turn over. Broil for another 2 minutes and turn steaks over again.
Not that appetizing yet. Just wait…
Brush steaks with half of the glaze and broil for one minute.
Looking better…
Turn the steaks over and brush with the remaining glaze and broil for 2 minutes or until desired degree of doneness.
So, I ended up putting mine in for a good 5ish more minutes, turning the steaks half way through. They came out a bit too rare for me with the original time suggested, but I think this is really up to the person cooking it. I was so fearful that it was going to burn that every 2 minutes I was checking on the steaks, which probably wasn’t helping the whole cooking process.
When it was finally cooked to my liking though, this was one tasty dinner. When making the glaze, I was afraid it might be a bit on the spicy side but it actually ended up having an almost caramelized taste to it, which was a pleasant surprise.
The hoisin glaze would be great on a number of different proteins: chicken, salmon, perhaps even scallops. Using the broiler still makes me a bit nervous though, so I may consider whipping up a batch of this glaze for use on the grill, if it ever warms up in Philadelphia (today is March 28—almost April—and the high is 45. Super.) I hope you enjoy this meal with less stress about broiling than me!
