Recent Posts & Recipes
The Most Tangy Lemony Lemon Bars
As a kid I could not resist sweets, especially ones filled with tangy lemon flavor. I remember the first time my best friend and I opened up our first lemonade stand. His mom had gone to the local Giant and bought the canned frozen concentrated lemonade mix. We then proceeded with the directions on the package, mix with 4 1/2 cans of cold water. After making our signs and deciding upon our price ($.25) for a 4 oz. glass, we were ready to sell. And boy did we sell. I remember one day we made over $10 in sales. In those days, $5 was a lot of cash and god bless his Mother’s heart, she never asked us to reimburse her for the cost of the cans or plastic cups. Second to lemonade, I love lemon bars because of the tart and the sweet combination they bring to the palate. I remember the first time I made them on my own, I was about 15 and it was late at night. Not having anything better to do, I whipped open one of the Betty Crocker cookbook series my mom had and there it was, a recipe for lemon bars. I’ve been hooked ever since. This lemon bar is the perfect blend of those two sensations. And as a little bonus to give these lemon bars and extra umph, I brush the top of the dough crust after it has baked with a teaspoon of kewar. Kewar is the concentrated essence of rose petals and a little bit goes a long way. I’ll guarantee you your guests will be asking...
Classic Creamy Baked Artichoke Dip
I enjoy serving dips as appetizers for get togethers with small groups of friends or family. Usually they are a cinch to make, don’t require a lot of planning or time and are perfect for snacking with cocktails while holding down peoples’ appetite as you put the finishing touches on the main meal. This recipe for classic creamy baked artichoke dip takes a total of 20-30 min. to make, with majority of the time baking in the oven, so you can set the timer and forget about it while you grace the room with your presence and elegantly entertain. Serve this dip with your favorite chips or with these easy to make...
Open Faced Breakfast Brisket Buttermilk Biscuit Sandwich
Every now and then I crave biscuits, and sometimes I would go to Popeyes just for their buttery, pillowy biscuits. But then I learned how to make biscuits at home and after a little trial and error, found that nothing beats homemade buttermilk biscuits. They are such an easy go to bread product because they require little time and effort unlike yeast breads, where you have to mix the dough, wait for it to proof, shape it, wait again for it to rise and then finally bake. By the time you have your finished product, 2-3 hrs. have gone by. With biscuits, you just mix the ingredients together, cut into your desired shapes, bake and in less than 30 min. you have warm, buttery bread to serve with eggs or at night as dinner rolls for your main meal. And of course who doesn’t love the classic biscuits and gravy. There are a few tricks in this recipe that make delicious fluffy buttery biscuits that also save you a little time. First, if you have a food processor like a Cuisine Art, add your dry ingredients with butter that has been cut into small cubes and pulse several times to incorporate the butter until they are pea size. Second, to help your biscuits rise, when you take the dough out of your bowl, flatten it out and then fold into thirds, folding the top third into the middle and then the bottom third on top. Rotate the dough and repeat a second time. Much like the process for creating croissants, this folding will help distribute the fat evenly,...
Limealicious & Cilantroiffic Guacamole Dip
Having lived in California for seven years, I fell in love with avocados. You would find them as a condiment in everything, from a salsa verde, to freshly diced on top of fish tacos and even in a dessert I was responsible for preparing in a restaurant I worked in where the recipe combined agave syrup, Hass avocados, lime zest and lime juice to make an avocado mousse garnished with shredded coconut. During the Avocado Festival in Carpenteria, a ten min. drive south from downtown Santa Barbara, you could find avocados in ice creams, sorbets, milk shakes and all sorts of vendors’ creations to showcase the mighty avocados’ versatility . But the most ubiquitous use of avocados that you would find in friends and families homes or restaurants is for guacamole. Guacamole dates back to the Aztecs where it was made into a sauce and served as a condiment. While some of the same ingredients are still used today, most guacamole dips include some combination of tomatoes, cilantro, lime, red onion, jalapeño and garlic. This guacamole dip keeps the ingredients simple to showcase the avocado’s creaminess. Whatever ingredients you choose to include, the key to great guacamole is finding perfectly ripe avocados which can be difficult in places like the east coast where avocados are usually under ripened by the time they reach the grocery store shelves. In this case, you might have to plan a couple of days ahead, placing the avocados in a brown bag with an apple or banana at room temperature to ripen them quicker. The best way to choose avocados is by feel: Hold...