Around Easter, a co-workers birthday prompted me to make some strawberry cupcakes with buttercream frosting. But I also wanted them to be somewhat special – so I topped them with dark chocolate eggs. OK, so really I just wanted dark chocolate eggs, and I knew that was a good excuse to buy them – you caught me. I had a few friends over (thanks B and C) so we were able to ice (or rather, Jeff iced) them and top ’em quite quickly!

I had made strawberry cake last summer for Ellen’s birthday, but it was a little crumbly, and I wanted these cupcakes to stay together so I found another recipe here.

I used fresh strawberries to start with.

I didn’t cut the middles out, but I did slice the tops off.

I stuck ’em into my food processor for a good puree. By the way, who loves their food processor? Ours makes a noise like a banshee is in my brain, and I think I might start losing my hearing or mind if I kept using it…any recommendations?

Then I proceeded to mix the strawberry puree with eggs, milk, and vanilla.

Then I added the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt…then I read that I wasn’t supposed to do that. I was supposed to add the above mentioned ingredients to the bowl, add the butter, THEN add the wet ingredients. I improvised, and added the butter last. It ended up with a smidge of butter at the bottom of each cupcake, but no one complained…I might just start making them like that!

I could show you photos of cupcakes being put into the oven and coming out, but that’d be boring, and probably repetitive, so here’s a photo of frosting instead! I waited a day to frost mine, but just make sure you wait until they cool before you ice!

And here they are with little chocolates! I used left over cupcake liners from another project, and they turned out quite colorful!

These were quite easy, and the cake recipe made 24 cupcakes. I highly suggest you make these for someone who likes strawberry — and soon. They’ll think your tops.

What is your favorite cupcake? Chocolate? Simple vanilla? Crazy chilé? Is there such a thing as chilé cupcakes?

Hmm…maybe something to try!

 


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Hello My Friends,

Today I will be talking about something lesser known these days in the spirits world, the existence of the “Fruit Bomb Wine” and how it can affect your meal. Now you might be saying to yourself, “I don’t think I’ve had a wine like that.” However, I can guarantee you that you have. So what is a so-called Fruit Bomb?

A Fruit Bomb Wine is something I had always known about in terms of taste but I hadn’t really understood the full affects they had on your palette. Even the term “Fruit Bomb Wine” wasn’t even in my vocabulary until a few weeks ago when I had a great discussion with a clerk at a local liquor store. Yeah, those guys who always ask you if you need help when you’re browsing? Remember folks it’s okay to ask for help! You never know when you will learn something new. Essentially a “Fruit Bomb Wine” is a wine that has an alcohol rating that is much higher than the normal output of wine, typically hovering around 16 – 20%. Now if you have ever set foot in a liquor store, wine shop, or even grocery store with a decent liquor section you will have seen a little tag either on the bottle of wine or somewhere near it talking about how many points it scored during such and such competition. Higher point values typically mean a more flavorful wine or more dollars that will be leaving your pocket. Unfortunately these two things don’t always coincide. Now the thing that most people don’t realize is that while the wine may have received a great deal of points in a competition it may not be the most suitable to put on your dinner table when you have wonderfully tasting food. Why you might ask? It’s simple: these wines were designed to win contests. Now don’t get me wrong, I love a good “Fruit Bomb”, Cabernets, Cuvees, and Zinfandels are some of my favorite wines. But I never realized until a few weeks ago, how heavily they may have been affecting that which I was eating.

When you drink a great bottle of wine, it is something to be savored, cherished, and remembered. But when you are eating a meal that you slaved over all day, carefully planning the tastes and the textures, you may be losing much of what you intended by pairing the meal with a “Fruit Bomb Wine”. This also applies when you are buying an assortment of food to have as your meal. So what makes one of these wines so risky while pairing with food? Basically the wine has a higher alcohol percentage because the grapes used to make the wine are on the vines longer and have a more intensified fermenting process. This allows for the flavors of the wine, whether they are fruits, spices, oak, or vanilla to triumphantly stand out. But when you drink this high alcohol content wine your tongue gets coated with not only the alcohol, but the flavors that it was meant to intensify, therefore affecting your perception of what you’re eating. This isn’t always a bad thing, I just feel like it should be something to be kept in the back of your mind when selecting a beverage for your meal. So the question is what would be a more subtle wine? Typically I like to stick with table wines that run in the 11 – 14% range. I find you still get the great flavor of the wine, but you do it without losing your meal.

What are some of your favorite kinds of wine to have with dinner? Or just to drink?

Good Spirits Folks!


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I made baked mac and cheese for a work potluck and it was a big hit! Several people told me it was delicious and even more asked for the recipe. While I cannot take credit for the recipe, as I tweaked Jack Bishop’s recipe from A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen to make it GF, I will take full credit for it being a success even among non-GF eaters!

Let me tell you right off the bat that my secret to making this recipe delicious is to use Fontina cheese and cut out the breadcrumbs. I usually cut out the breadcrumbs because I don’t think that they add much to the recipe and it is easier than having to substitute a GF alternative. It would be a waste of expensive GF breadcrumbs in my opinion.

In any case, this is a rich filling entree that is easily adapted to be GF and can feed a small army if needed or an office party.

While your pasta is cooking, dice your Fontina and shred your Parmesan. Or you can cheat like I did and use a pre-shredded Parm/Romano mix from Trader Joe’s if you are short on time. Full disclosure: it tastes better when you shred the Parm fresh. Unfortunately. Least favorite kitchen task.

It is a strange step, but be sure you grab some of the hot pasta water before you drain the pasta. I surmise that the extra pasta water helps the mixture to continue cooking the pasta while in the oven.

Mix all of the ingredients together in a large mixing bowl with the almost fully cooked pasta.

Put the mixture in a baking dish, top with some extra Parmesan and then stick it in the oven for 10 minutes or until the top starts to turn golden brown.


Serve to hungry persons. Telling them it is GF, optional!


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To finish off my Colombian cooking adventure with Ana, I give you our beverages of the day: Lulo juice and Colombian hot chocolate.

Lulo is a fruit (also know as narajilla) that has a slight citrus taste, but really is indescribable because it tastes like…lulo! It was very exciting to taste a new fruit, and fun to do with with someone so familiar with that fruit, too!

Here’s the pulp we got at the Hispanic grocery store, which was frozen.

You mix the pulp with water and sugar to make your juice!

When blended the juice was frothy and delicious. It separated easily, but when shaken blended very nicely.

After the lulo, we tried Colombian hot chocolate — what a delicious treat!!

Here’s the chocolate that Ana brought over. At this point, I was so excited I could have stolen all of her chocolate. I didn’t, but I very much wanted to.

Mixing the chocolate in with the milk.

Then, Ana poured the chocolate into her small pitcher, so she could blend it more!

She made sure to get every last drop of chocolate. This is why we are friends.

Ana, blending the hot chocolate with her fancy tool, a molinillo.

We enjoyed our hot chocolate with our arepas.

I also enjoyed my hot chocolate with queso which added quite the salty flair to the drink!

Finally, we enjoyed the hot chocolate by dipping bread in it – which was so delicious I am glad I didn’t steal the chocolate or I would have had a piece of bread and cup of hot chocolate every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

So there you have it — delicious lulo juice and hot chocolate with Ana, a delicious addition to the areaps and buñuelos that we prepared.

What are your favorite drinks to have? Do you drink juice at home, or stick to water? What’s your go-to chocolate for hot chocolate? A powder? A bar from your favorite country? Let us know, because we’re always looking for new chocolate options here!

 

 

 


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Another recipe that Ana and I made was buñelos. These are like deep fried dough balls, but the dough is made of flour and cheese. So, basically the best thing ever. I said several times while we were making them that I was moving to Colombia, because if this is what was for breakfast I was IN.

We used the recipe from the side of the box:

24 oz queso fresco
12 oz buñoelina
2 eggs

This is the flour/meal we used. It is corn based, and very fine. We got this at the Hispanic grocery store, too!

First thing first: you have to heat up your oil! It needed to be deep fried, so we heated the oil to 400 degrees. The box suggested testing it with a piece of dough, but my candy thermometer said “deep fry” was between 350 and 450, so we just aimed in the middle.

Delicious cheese. I restrained myself from just eating all of it!

Mix ’em together.

Roll ’em into balls. These were pretty big – the recipe said this would make 30, but Ana told me they should be this size (about the size of golf balls, maybe even slightly bigger.) As such, we only got 8!!

When your oil is hot enough, throw ’em in. You want to do them in batches – don’t crowd the pan!

 

Look at them, turning a beautiful brown…I could tell by this point I was going to love them.

Some of them exploded, making them interesting shapes…

Like this one, that looks much like a duck. Do you see it?

And that weird one, with a goose neck!

Here is the inside. Moist, delicious, cheesy, hot, amazing. These were so good and dangerously somehow light (I may have eaten three.) I suggest you make these as soon as you have a chance…and invite me over!

Have you ever had buñuelos? Were yours bigger, smaller? Where were you when you had them?

 

 


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