Philadelphia is a food lovers dream. The city is filled with amazing restaurants around every corner. I love living here because no matter where I go to eat, I am inspired by what the restaurants are able to deliver. I do my best to emulate my favorite dishes and drinks throughout the city, with a bit of a twist.
I recently attended a new menu launch event at Serrano. An Old City staple, Serrano has been open for over 25 years. I’ve only eaten here once before, before attending a show at Tin Angel upstairs, so I was excited to revisit the restaurant. Serrano is a cozy restaurant that’s warm atmosphere feels like miles away from the busy Old City streets.
from Serrano’s website
Chef Gina Rodriguez has compiled a truly delicious spring seasonal menu. The restaurant was also debuting two new cocktails, The 6th Thyme and Jim Dandy in the Everglades. The 6th Thyme is made with in house made mead (made with locally sourced honey), Aperol, thyme, and white cranberry juice. The drink was garnished with a sprig of thyme, a perfect spring drink. Jim Dandy in the Everglades, made with orange vodka, peach bitters, and Proscecco was refreshing and right up my alley.
The 6th Time (Left) and Jim Dandy in the Everglades (Right)
I decided to do my own spin on the Jim Dandy in the Everglades to go along with my review of Chef Rodriguez’s menu. My recipe uses a homemade cranberry-orange vodka but keeps the rest of the drink true to form. (The addition of the cranberry is why my drink references the Cape instead of the Everglades).
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! One of my favorite memories growing up was my mom making Irish Soda bread during March. It is a fairly straightforward bread and is really quite easy.
The bread uses baking soda instead of yeast as its leavening agent. Irish Soda Bread is also made with buttermilk that reacts with the baking soda to make it rise. Soda bread is a mostly savory bread, but it usually has some kind of dried fruit in it (raisins, currants, etc) that add a bit of sweetness.
My mom’s version has caraway seeds in it that add a little bit of an anise flavor to it (caraway seeds are typically found in rye bread) and I just love it. I wanted to make this with currants but couldn’t find any, so I used raisins. Feel free to substitute golden raisins or currants.
I’m so ready for spring. I’m sick of the cold and wind, although we didn’t have any snow this year. So I am going to force spring upon you in the hope of it pushing the warmer months up a little bit. When I think of spring, I always think of Strawberries. And what better way to show off strawberries than in Strawberry Shortcake, or more specifically, in Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes? I decided to make them in cupcake form because, well, I like cupcakes. I used a Martha Stewart recipe for angel food cake to make the cupcake, filled the inside of the cupcake with a strawberry-sugar mixture, and topped it off with a strawberry whipped cream icing. These are pretty delicious if I do say so myself! Ingredients: Angel Food Cake Cupcakes:
1 cup cake flour (spooned and leveled)
1/4 teaspoon salt
12 large egg whites, room temperature
4 teaspoons lemon juice and zest from 1 lemon, divided
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Strawberry filling:
3/4 container of strawberries, hulled and chopped
2 tablespoons sugar
Strawberry whipped cream:
1 8-oz container cream cheese
3/4 cup white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
lemon zest from lemon used in angel food cake
2 cups heavy cream
4-5 strawberries, stems removed and finely chopped
I am a huge fan of coffee and coffee-related foods, so tiramisu is obviously a favorite of mine. When the concept of Tiramisu Brownies was mentioned, I was immediately excited. What a fantastic combination of desserts!
Barista Prima Coffeehouse® K-Cup® (paid link) packs are four dark, rich coffee blends that really deliver an intense flavor that are more bold and robust than other K-Cup offerings. The four flavors offered are: Colombia, House Blend, Italian Roast, and French Roast. I’ve had a Keurig for years now (I just had to retire my original Keurig and buy a replacement, sniffle) and am always really pleased with the coffee choices that can be found in K-Cup form. I tend to use coffee grounds in a bunch of recipes, especially ones that use chocolate, to really up the flavor.
Barista Prima was nice enough to send me a box of their House Blend K-Cups so I naturally wanted to make a dish that used these delicious grounds as well as a dessert that would be perfect paired with a cup of House Blend coffee. Many thanks to Barista Prima for also sending me this mouthwatering recipe!
Ingredients:
12 oz. chocolate chips
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
4 whole eggs
4 egg whites
1 cup cake flour (or normal flour if you can’t find it)
Last year, I made sugar cookies and attempted to decorate them myself (attempted being the key word). I may be getting better at cooking, but my decorating skills are still really sub par. I didn’t want to give away funny looking cookies again this year but wanted to still make sugar cookies. Cooking Light’s Chai Eggnog Sugar Cookies were the perfect choice. Plus, these cookies are really quick to whip up because you can absolutely use sugar cookie mix!
Ingredients:
1 chai tea bag
1 (17.5-oz.) package sugar cookie mix
1/2 cup melted butter
1 large egg
4 tablespoons eggnog, divided
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
Note: These cookies are non-alcoholic so they are fine for all ages of cookie lovers.
This year, I participated in the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap.The Cookie Swap is in its second year and helps raise money for Cookies for Kids’ Cancer, a national non-profit organization committed to funding new therapies used in the fight against pediatric cancer, which claims the lives of more children in the US than any other disease. I was assigned three food bloggers and made one dozen cookies for each of them. In return, I received three different boxes of cookies from other bloggers.
I wanted to make a cookie that was a spin on a traditional cookie. This Cooking Light recipe was perfect: Oatmeal, Chocolate Chip, AND Pecans!
If you’ve never heard of these lovelies, you are not alone. Rainbow cookies are made of almond cake dyed fun bright colors with apricot preserves all sandwiched in between two thin layers of chocolate.
They really aren’t cookies at all, more like thinly packed cake. But whatever the heck they are, they are delicious!
I don’t really recall these cookies growing up, but my boyfriend (who is from Long Island) absolutely loves them. In fact, he was kind of taken aback when I mentioned I didn’t really know what they were. One of his friends was absolutely horrified; he basically forced me to eat one right then and there which I didn’t complain about. I love them now!
So I wanted to try to make these little guys… I’m not sure why. They are awfully difficult (well, more time consuming than difficult). But I was so darn proud of myself when they were done, I don’t even care about the effort I had to put in! The cookies go by a ton of names… Rainbow, Seven Layer, Neapolitan, Tricolor… but I’m pretty sure they tend to be a Christmas staple in Italian households. I found this recipe on Epicurious.
Ingredients:
1 (12 oz) jar apricot preserves, heated and strained
What is it about tiny treats that make the food taste better? I love perfectly portioned food so I was excited to be sent Petite Treats: Mini Versions of Your Favorite Baked Delights. The cookbook has recipes for mini donuts, muffins, scones, pies, and bundt cakes. The recipes sound absolutely delicious but to make most of the treats, you’ll need quite a bit of hardware: mini bunt cake pans, mini donut pans, mini scone pans, mini cupcake pans, etc. There are a few recipes that use a normal muffin pan that sounded really appealing, including mini cakes, but I decided to make the mini coffee cakes so I could have breakfast all week.
Ingredients:
1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
1 3/4 cup sugar
1 cup fresh cranberries (I used frozen cranberries, thawed)
2 cups plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour, divided
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter,at room temperature, divided
I wanted to make another batch of the Applejack Spiked Hot Cider but *gasp* I couldn’t find any apple cider anywhere! There must have been a Thanksgiving rush, but I wanted some darn Apple Cider. But then I remembered I bought a Babycakes Cake Pop Maker (paid link) and figured I could at least make Apple Cinnamon Donut Holes as a sweet apple-y substitute. (Because I couldn’t find apple cider, I substituted apple juice)
The only upside to the colder weather, is that it is now appropriate for me to make eggnog. And not just any eggnog, but pumpkin eggnog. Pinnacle Vodka came out with a pumpkin pie vodka this year, and I’ve been waiting and waiting for the right weather to make this drink. I actually used a recipe that came from The Cookbook of Ellen M Emlen, which is a recipe book from from the 1860’s that The Historical Society of Pennsylvania found in their collection. I’ve written about this cookbook before on this blog and I just love it.
One of the issues in the cookbook though, is that it is written before standard measurements were invented so the recipes aren’t easily reproduced. (For example, this recipe called for a wine-size glass of milk. White wine or red wine glass? Completely full, or what a serving in the glass would be? You get the picture.)
But I figured if it was good enough for the 19th century, it’s good enough for me!
Have you ever had a recipe just not work out the way it’s supposed to? It happens to me all the time. I usually tend to mess up a recipe so badly that I don’t even post it on here. But every now and then, my odd mistake ends up not being so bad, and is, dare is say it, quite delicious. This is one of those times, so I decided to share it. This recipe is adapted from verybestbaking.com.
Ingredients:
2/3 cup (~15) crushed gingersnap cookies
2 tablespoons butter, melted
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 can pumpkin puree
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 tablespoons dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips
Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners. (I tried both paper and foil cupcake liners. Use foil, the paper ones got stuck and I couldn’t get the tarts out!)
Crumble the gingersnaps. Place them in a ziploc bag and roll with a rolling pin until finely crushed.
Combine the cookie crumbs and butter in a small bowl.
Evenly distribute into each muffin tin (about 1 tablespoon per muffin tin) and press into the bottom to create a crust. Bake the muffin cups for 5 minutes.
Beat the cream cheese, pumpkin, sugar, spices, and vanilla extract until blended.
This is where things went south. My cream cheese was not having this whole “blended” thing. I think it still might have been too cold so it kind of chunked off into the mixture. Blargh.
Add eggs and beat well.
Nope, still chunky.
Pour the mixture into the muffin cups, filling about 3/4 of the way full.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, remove, and allow to cool in a pan on a wire rack.
Refrigerate the tarts for 10 minutes. You can prepare the chocolate drizzle at this point. Add the chocolate chips to a heavy duty ziploc bag. Microwave on high in 10 second intervals, taking the bag out and kneading to see if the chips have melted. (I think mine took 3 10 second intervals).
Cut a super tiny corner from the bag.
Squeeze over the tarts to drizzle with chocolatey goodness.
So. They probably aren’t as pretty as they were supposed to be. And I was pretty bummed about the chunks of cream cheese. Sigh.
But one bite, and I was over it. They were delicious! It kind of ended up being like a mini pumpkin pie with bursts of cheesecake. So you can judge how funny they look all day, but I’ll just keep on snacking on my funny looking tarts. 🙂
There is a good chance I have a rice problem, I love all things rice. My go-to meal in a pinch is always risotto. So when DailyBuzz Food had an opportunity to work with RiceSelect through their Tastemaker program, I jumped at the chance. RiceSelect is one of my favorite rice brands. You may notice their nifty containers popping out of a bunch of my posts so I was really excited to work with their rice. The catch was that they sent me one of RiceSelect’s rice randomly, I didn’t get to choose it. When I opened up the package, I discovered brown rice. Hum. I’ve never worked with brown rice before, but I was up for the challenge!
I decided to make a stir fry teriyaki dish using my favorite protein, salmon. Normally stir fry is a quick dinner choice but brown rice takes quite a bit of time to cook. But it gives you plenty of time to prep your veggies and hang out with your dinner guests!
Ingredients: (I cut this recipe for Salmon Teriyaki Stir Fry down to two servings to make it easier. Multiply as needed)
I was recently sent the Taste of Home Cooking School Cookbook to review. Paging through the cookbook, I really loved the number of how-to’s included in the book. Everything from how to cook an omelette to what kitchen utensils every beginner cook needs. The recipes are really simple with beautiful photos to help you throughout; it’s basically a better version of my blog! 🙂
The cookbook isn’t just for beginners though, there are plenty of recipes that are helpful for any level of at-home cook. There is a recipe for gnocchi I can’t wait to try! (I attempted to make gnocchi once before, but they didn’t end up being happy little pillows of deliciousness; they were pretty dense. Sigh)
I decided to try to make their cherry pie. I have only made pie crust once before so I was excited to try again. Plus, I recently bought a Babycakes Pie Maker and had yet to try it out. The recipe for the cherry pie was followed by a how-to for making a lattice pie top so I wanted to try that out as well.
Ingredients:
Filling:
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch
1 cup cranberry juice
4 cups frozen pitted tart cherries, thawed
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Pie crust:
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup shortening
7 tablespoons cold water
Note: I will give the directions as if I was making a large pie and will add commentary where the mini pie maker has different instructions. (I’m guessing most people don’t have a mini pie maker lying around!)
To make the filling, combine the sugar and cornstarch in a large saute pan.
Stir in the cranberry juice until smooth.
“Smooth” might be more appropriate
Bring to a boil, stirring for 2 minutes or until thickened.
Remove from heat and add the cherries, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla.
To make the crust, combine the flour and salt in a large bowl. Cut in shortening until crumbly.
Gradually add the cold water. Start with 5 tablespoons and add 1 or 2 tablespoons more if needed. Toss with a fork until a ball forms.
Divide the dough in half with one ball slightly larger than the other. (You don’t have to do this if making mini pies.)
On a lightly floured surface, roll out the larger ball to fit in a 9-inch pie plate. When ready to transfer to the pie plate, loosely roll the dough around your roller and unroll into the pie plate. Trim dough 1 inch beyond the edge of the plate. (The mini pie maker comes with a cutter so I used that to get the correct shape. I then used another tool that comes with the product to push the dough into the mini pie plate.)
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Add the filling. (For mini pies, this is about 2-4 tablespoons of the filling per pie)
The book also goes through how to make a lattice-topped pie! Roll out the remaining pastry dough into a 12-inch circle. (I just used the cutter provided with my mini pie baker). With a pastry wheel (? No idea what a pastry wheel is. Feel free to use a pizza cutter or a knife), cut the dough into 1/2 inch to 1 inch wide strips.
Take half the strips (I just went every other that was cut) and lay them across the pie in with 1/2 inch to 3/4 inches between them.
Fold back every other strip.
Take one strip of dough and lay it perpendicular to the strips already on the pie. Unfold the folded strips over the perpendicular strip and fold back the strips that are running underneath that strip.
Lay down a second strip and continue the process until the lattice top is finished.
Trim the strips to fit in the pie and fold bottom pastry up over the edges of the strips and seal. (I couldn’t do this for mine, but I bet they would have looked much nicer!)
Bake at 425 F for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 375 degrees and bake for 45-50 minutes longer or until crust is golden brown. Allow to cool on a wire rack. (I baked mine for 15 minutes and cooled on a wire rack).
I was quite happy with how these turned out. I think they needed a bit more sugar, but I think I used the wrong type of frozen cherries (mine were no sugar added). I also think a little lemon zest would really up the flavor of these quite nicely.
I also made a normal topped pie
I’m so excited about the lattice top! I obviously added a bit too much filling because it spilled over, but when I make a real pie, I now know how to do the lattice on top, yay!
To sweeten it up, I just topped the mini pies with ice cream. That solved the problem!
I have many childhood memories of me chasing down the ice cream truck to get my absolute favorite ice cream treat: a Chipwich. I mean, honestly, what more could you ask for in a dessert? Two chocolate chip cookies with ice cream sandwiched in between. Mmm.
So I was, well, horrified, to find out that the Chipwich brand name is no longer in existence as of 2007. At that time, Nestle bought the rights to the name and stopped all production because it competed with their “Chocolate Chip Cookie Sandwich.” I mean, come on. The name Chipwich is exponentially more catchy. But hey, whatever floats their boat.
Since finding out this information, I can’t get the idea of making my own Homemade Chipwiches or Chocolate Chip Cookie Sandwiches out of my head.
I was sent an Airbake cooking sheet recently and wanted to test it out. The Airbake Nonstick Insulated sheets are pretty snazzy. They are made of 100% aluminum and are comprised of two sheets surrounding a layer of air. This is said to reduce the temperature of the metal that actually comes in contact with the food which should result in more even baking. Airbake also claims that cookie bottoms won’t burn, win! (They also have natural sheets if you don’t want nonstick)
I decided to use a recipe from David Lebovitz for Salted Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies because the only way I can think to enhance my homemade chipwiches would be to add a little salt to bring out the flavor.
Ingredients (makes about 12 hand-sized chipwiches, make cookies larger if desired):
4 ounces salted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/3 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon flaky sea salt or kosher salt
1 1/3 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1 pint vanilla ice cream (or your favorite ice cream)
Most of the time when I explain my blog to someone, they bring up Julie and Julia. I have yet to watch the movie, and I am only a few chapters into the book, so I’m not exactly sure how many similarities I have to Julie. However, it goes without saying that Julia Child is an inspiration to most, if not all, food bloggers, cooks, and home cooks. August 15, 2012 is Julia Child’s 100th birthday. To celebrate, JC100 was launched. It is a national campaign involving restaurants, chefs, bookstores, and bloggers. The goal is to “raise one million voices in tribute to Julia”. When I was asked to participate, I jumped at the chance. The campaign started 100 days before Julia’s birthday on May 7.
The first recipe was a classic Omelette Roulee, a Rolled Omelette which Julia described as “dinner in half a minute.” Well, I found one thing I have in common with Julie (not Julia): I am not a big egg fan. The idea of eating an omelette at all, let alone for dinner, didn’t make me happy. So I passed over the recipe so that the first recipe I posted could be something I truly love. JC100 is sending me a new recipe each week so I should have a summer full of Julia Child recipes on here!
This week, the recipe was right up my alley: chocolate mousse! This chocolate mousse is a winner. Instead of the typical mousse made with cream and egg white, this one is made of egg yolks, sugar, and butter. I also made a fresh whipped cream to top off the mousse.
Ingredients:
4 eggs, separated
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup orange liqueur
A pan of barely simmering water
A basin of cold water
6 ounces or squares semi-sweet baking chocolate
4 tablespoons of strong coffee (I used espresso granules dissolved in boiling water)
1 1/2 sticks softened unsalted butter
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon orange liqueur
To make, prepare your two waters. Add a small pot filled with water to the stove over medium heat. Bring to just below a simmer. Add ice to a medium sized bowl and fill with water.
Add the egg yolks to a medium sized bowl; you want it to be stainless steel or porcelain. Reserve the egg whites for later use.
Add the sugar and beat until the mixture is thick, pale, yellow, and falls upon itself forming a ribbon. Add the orange liqueur.
Place the bowl over the simmering water and and continue to beat for 3 to 4 minutes, or until the mixture is foamy. (Keep the simmering pot over the heat, you’ll use it again soon)
Move the bowl to on top of the ice water bowl and beat for another 3 to 4 minutes. The mixture should again form ribbons and have the consistency of mayonnaise.
Add the chocolate and 4 tablespoons coffee to a small saute pan.
Melt the chocolate and coffee mixture over the hot water.
Remove from heat and slowly beat in the butter a little at a time to make a smooth cream.
Add the chocolate mixture to the egg-sugar mixture and mix to combine.
So, what you’re supposed to do at this stage is beat the egg whites and salt in a separate bowl until soft peaks form. Add the 1 tablespoon sugar and beat until stiff peaks are formed. Add 1/4 of the egg whites to the chocolate mixture and then fold in the rest of the egg whites.
That was on a different page. Which I apparently decided not to read. So my “mousse” had more of a pudding consistency. Oops. It was still delicious!
Refrigerate for 2 hours before serving.
To make the whipped cream, add the cream to a bowl. Using a hand mixer, mix the cream on medium/high until frothy.Add the sugar, vanilla and orange liqueur. Beat on medium/high until stiff peaks form, and the mixture resembles whipped cream.
To serve, scoop the mousse into individual bowls and top with fresh whipped cream.
Despite my colossal mistake, this dessert turned out really well! The mousse had a silky consistency that I really enjoyed. I couldn’t necessarily taste the coffee or the orange liqueur, but I could taste that there was something special in there.
The whipped cream was a great complement. The orange liqueur was a bit more pronounced in the whipped cream which worked really well with the mousse.
I’m bummed I messed up Julia Child’s recipe, but, to quote Julia herself “try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless, and above all have fun!” I learned that I really need to read a recipe all the way through before starting to make a recipe, something I am guilty of on more than one occasion. So I may not have had the right consistency, but the flavor was still there. I’ll call it a win!
