Skip to content Skip to sidebar Skip to footer
Book Reviews Dessert Restaurants
Ono Dough Fo’ Sho — Malasadas @ Issaquah Farmers Market
Since I was a kid, I've loved donuts. Wednesday mornings on the way to school, my mom would stop at the donut shop in my home town. I'd hop out of the car and drop a couple of quarters into the newspaper machines for the LA Times and Examiner food sections and sometimes we'd get a dozen donuts in a pink box. Sugar-raised, glazed, chocolate-topped, a crumb cake (always the last one left in the box) and a plain cake for my grandpa. Other times, on weekends, we'd go to Dunkin Donuts and get a bunch of Munchkins in an orange handle box. The chocolate cake ones were my favorite. Fast forward 15 years. The first time I had a malasada might have been at Komoda Store in Makawao, Maui. It was good, but just seemed like a donut. Later, on the Big Island we got some malasadas fresh from the fryer at Tex’s, and a new obsession was born. Rolled in sugar, these yeast-raised donuts are tender and sweet, and they’re as key to a visit to the Islands as plate lunch and good shave ice. Everyone always says Leonard's in Honolulu is the gold standard, I can't say, I haven't had theirs yet.
September 5, 2012
Recipes Salads Side Dishes
Summer Wind Down w/ a Green Bean & Cherry Tomato Salad
  Some long weekends I go into overdrive on cooking projects, but over this past Labor Day weekend, I felt compelled to do almost nothing. I hit the farmers market Saturday morning after having missed the two previous weeks and bought a ridiculous amount of Roma tomatoes and nectarines to stave off that nagging (read: desperate) feeling that summer is slipping away. But I didn’t have anything really in mind for them. OJ is embarking on a new diet and exercise regimen, which puts some real food limitations on half our household, so a nectarine buckle was out of the question and I didn’t feel motivated enough to make tomato paste. So despite our larder being more than full, this weekend was about simplicity. It was also about baseball games, braving the crowds at Pike Place and stocking up on this and that at Cost Plus, but mostly, it was about simplicity.
September 4, 2012
Appetizers Baking Recipes
Hatch Chile Popovers
With everyone getting kids back to school, summer has been declared over. But I won’t let it be. I'm saying right here, right now, it ain’t over til it’s over. We’re in the best days of late summer – still warm and mostly sunny – and the chiles have arrived. The chiles – you know…
August 30, 2012
Restaurants Travel
What I Did on Summer Vacation, Part 1: Tofino, BC Edition
Summer vacation is a bit of misnomer if you live in the Pacific Northwest. Summer is when it’s finally sunny and beautiful here, so you want to stay home and soak it up, rather than leave it behind. The last couple of years we've kept our vacations close to home, exploring other parts of the Pacific Northwest, but we’ve taken them either too early or too late to get a strong dose of sunshine, but this year, we hit it just right. We’re just back from a glorious week in Tofino, British Columbia, a little beach town on the edge of Vancouver Island near Pacific Rim National Park.
August 29, 2012
Restaurants Travel
Ma’ono Seattle: Yes, We Had the Fried Chicken
The fried chicken is the main attraction at Ma'ono Fried Chicken and Whisky in West Seattle and with good reason. It's some goooood chicken. Not just when it's hot, but even the next day cold. I'm convinced anyone who says the fried chicken was greasy or not worth it (I'm looking at you Yelp reviews) is just trying to keep more for themselves. But let's take our time, shall we? We'll get to the chicken, don't worry.
August 21, 2012
Main Course Recipes Side Dishes
Cool Off a Hot Summer Night: Edamame Hummus
We’re in the dog days of summer, finally. Days so hot all you want to do is sit in front of an oscillating fan and sip a cool glass of iced tea. Days so hot nothing is getting cooked, except you in your car on the commute home. I’ve got something for you. It’s cool, crisp and refreshing. It’s….a sandwich. Well, a dip and a sandwich. Break out the food processor, we’re making edamame hummus, which you can do as dip for dinner with veg and pita chips, or as a great spread on sandwiches for the “Damn, could it get any hotter?” nights ahead.
August 15, 2012
Baking Breafkast Recipes
Sour Cherry Coffee Cake
Are you always the last to know? I feel that way about sour cherries. Did everyone else already know how good, how different they are from regular sweet cherries? Why did no one tell me? Our pie cherry week(s) (season is too long to actually describe it) finally arrived in Seattle, I know most everyone else had their go in June and pie cherries are but a distant memory at this point. But with only one shot with them, I split the difference and made a sour cherry compote and a coffee cake. And now we know who’s been hoarding all the pie cherries, because I thought, “OMG – it really does taste like canned cherry pie filling!”
August 13, 2012
Baking Recipes
Easy Strawberry and Lemon Curd Pie
Something about pie dough scares me. I’m forever not rolling it to the right thickness or into shapes that resemble a rhombus rather than a circle. It’s ironic, because when it comes to eating pie, I love a double crust. But if pie making is a drug, this strawberry and lemon curd pie is a Nilla wafer and saltine cracker gateway drug. Yes, I said SALTINES. You’re in, right? So let’s go.
August 7, 2012
Dessert Recipes
Ice Cream Dream: Shoyu Caramel Sauce
  In FoodBlogLand, everything is well lit and screen-lickingly delicious. All dishes are successes and a minor misstep can be saved with a well-placed garnish or a sauce. But in the real world, sometimes things just don’t turn out the way you expect. I could let this custard melt back to its former state (which would take less than 5 minutes) and call it a shoyu caramel milkshake, but I’m not gonna do it. It was meant to be ice cream and it just didn’t freeze into anything that would hold a remotely scoop-like shape. It just didn’t. The caramel flavor is strong, the consistency is creamy with the elasticity you associate with caramel,but you just can’t lick it off a cone. But even in this beautiful disaster there’s a win – the caramel sauce.
August 3, 2012
Beverages Entertaining Fruit Recipes
Don’t Call Me Shirley Raspberry Spritzer
  Drinks named after celebrities seem to belong to a bygone era. One of the thrills of going out to dinner with my parents when I was little was ordering a Shirley Temple. With its delicate pink hue and a maraschino cherry floating on top, a Shirley Temple made you feel like one of the grownups. I think I even ordered one at dinner before junior prom. Today, if I ordered a Roy Rogers or an Arnold Palmer, I expect most people would know what I was after without explanation. But some where along the line, drinks named after celebrities fell out of favor. Can you imagine ordering a George Clooney, a Justin Bieber, or a Tiger Woods? The idea for this raspberry spritzer started as a spin on a Shirley Temple, which I’ve always thought of as 7-up and grenadine, but Wikipedia claims the soda is actually ginger ale. Made with a fresh raspberry syrup brightened by lemon, this spritzer is sweet but not cloying. And yes, it takes 3 half-pints of berries, but it’ll put any Italian soda made with bottled syrup to shame.
July 30, 2012
Newest posts Older posts