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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, 2012Share Post
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, 2012Share Post
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, 2012Share Post
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, 2012Share Post
Recipes Salads
Seattle Succotash Salad
Pop quiz! What makes succotash, succotash? A. Lima beans B. Corn C. Cooking the vegetables D. Pork E. Who knows? All of the above. On a multiple choice test, they always say, pick C, but in this case, I’m going with E. Merriam Webster says succotash is corn and lima beans. The word comes from the Narragansett for boiled corn, “msíckquatash.” Some recipes add bacon or ham. Most recipes cook the vegetables. Others add tomatoes, or red or green bell peppers. Sufferin’ succotash!
July 26, 2012Share Post
Travel
Scenes from Seattle’s Bon Odori Festival
On Saturday, I texted my mom: “We’re at Obon in Seattle!” It’s kind of crazy that we’ve lived in Seattle for almost 5 years and never been to the Obon festival here. Or as Seattle calls it, Bon Odori. It’s a Buddhist festival of remembrance, but for me, it's always been more of a cultural event than a religious one. As a kid, Obon was synonymous with summer and it was about teri burgers and wontons and Okinawa dango and corn on the cob and snow cones and winning goldfish at carnival games and watching the bon dancing. And pretty much it still is. Even in a different city. You just don’t realize until you’re an adult how much those simple things connect you to so many other people.
July 25, 2012Share Post
Main Course Recipes Soups
Bittman’s Corn Chowder with Chorizo and Green Onion
  When corn is finally in season, it's hard not to eat it non-stop. The first corn for us is always reserved for bill's corn fritters, but after that, it's game on for corn in salads, or roasted on the cob, slathered in butter and salt, or sprinkled with chile powder and lime juice. One of the best ways to enjoy the pure flavor of corn is in chowder. Soup in the summer? Yes, oh yes.
July 23, 2012Share Post
Restaurants
Cafe Juanita’s Al Fresco Pasta Dinner
As a food town, Seattle may not have the swagger of New York or San Francisco or LA, but it stands on its own. Ask foodies across the country about Seattle and they might mention Pike Place or the fact that Tom Douglas catered a fundraising lunch for President Obama, but ask them if they’ve heard of Kirkland, Washington and they’ll say, “Oh yeah, like at Costco. Kirkland.” A Microsoft bedroom community, Kirkland is the home of Costco #1, but it’s also the home to one of the best restaurants in the Seattle area -- Café Juanita. Specializing in northern Italian cuisine with a focus on locally sourced ingredients, Café Juanita is casually elegant, at once special occasion and neighborhood spot. You might know chef/owner Holly Smith as winner of the James Beard Foundation’s 2008 Best Chef Northwest, or for her turn on Iron Chef America, where she won her bout with Iron Chef Cat Cora. This year, Chef Smith was nominated as Outstanding Chef in the US by the Beard Foundation. But I gotta tell ya, I didn’t need the Beard Foundation to confirm that Chef Smith’s got game.
July 19, 2012Share Post
Cooking Recipes Side Dishes
Israeli Couscous with Roasted Tomato Vinaigrette
As a cook, my grandma was a product of her generation. Raising kids in the 50s and 60s, she cooked both from scratch and from boxes and packets as convenience foods came on the scene -- say chicken and dumplings, with Bisquick dumplings. Some days when I was a kid, she'd start dinner at 2 pm and other days she'd whip together a one-skillet meal in half an hour. Green beans and tomatoes always remind me one of her one-pan dinners served over rice. She’d sauté chunks of onion with garlic and either chicken or pork in a little oil, then add canned tomatoes and some green beans, cooking until the beans were tender. Salt and pepper was the only seasoning. It was simple, and it cemented green beans and tomatoes for me. This Israeli couscous salad takes inspiration from that dish with just cooked green beans and a roasted tomato vinaigrette, brightened with a trio of herbs.
July 17, 2012Share Post
summer chopped salad with soba
Main Course Recipes Restaurants Salads
Summer Chopped Salad w/ Soba Noodles
summer chopped salad In the summer, it's supposed to be easy to be extra virtuous. Cherries, berries, peaches. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers...the markets are overflowing with lovely produce to tempt your tastebuds. But I was anything but virtuous this weekend. It was glorious in Seattle. Summer truly arrived, the sundresses and sandals came out of hiding and we had a little barbecue. Nothing fancy, just sausages, potato salad, grilled peppers and zucchini. But something about sitting out in the warm summer sun put Doritos, Fritos and cupcakes on the menu, too. It was a "I'll start that diet on Monday," kind of weekend.
July 11, 2012Share Post
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