Last week we celebrated both Jennie and Jeff’s birthdays in the Garlic, My Soul kitchen. We decided to try something other than the standard birthday cake, and a chocolate bread pudding seemed like a fun treat to try!

We found a recipe on jelly toast that made our mouths water. Chocolate and balsamic vinegar bread pudding? Guinness chocolate sauce? Whiskey whipped cream? Sign us up, please.

The original recipe called for individual bread puddings in ramekins, so we decided to try them muffin size!

Using cinnamon bread as the base for this pudding gave it an extra sweetness that paired perfectly with dark chocolate and Guinness sauce. And the small amount of balsamic vinegar in the pudding mixture was absolutely amazing. One caution, though. We did end up abandoning the whiskey whipped cream when it started to curdle. No worries! We started fresh with plain, old-fashioned whipped cream, and lived to cook another day.
These made the perfect birthday treat. Simple, but decadent. They were most delicious served right out of the oven, but we also enjoyed them cold, reheated, and room temperature. Needless to say, we ate a lot of these!

Hey everyone! Happy National Doughnut Day! We hope that wherever you are, you have a chance to eat some doughnuts.

A long, long time ago we made doughnuts for our first GMS shoot. We covered some in sugar, and some in sprinkles with frosting. They were delicious, and we often think of making them again…we really need to do that!

We thought you might want to make some, too. So here’s a link to our original post.

Happy eating!

Thanks to Mary Costa Photography for these lovely photographs!

Growing up, in the summer we always had several foods on rotation; hot dogs, hamburgers, watermelon, grapes, potato salad, and always macaroni salad. Which was one of my fave dishes – simple, easy to make, and can be a side or a lunch.

The salad is simple: elbow macaroni, celery, tuna, mayo, mustard, and salt and pepper. Feel free to take liberties with it on amounts, but this is how I make it:

1 pound elbow macaroni
2 cans tuna
4-6 stalks celery (about what you see in the photo)
2-4 tablespoons mayo (depending on how much you like mayo)
2-4 tablespoons mustard
s/p

So just in case you’re wondering, if I ever offer to make macaroni salad, this is what I am bringing. This is macaroni salad. I boil some pasta, I cool it. I chop some celery, I add it all together, and I salt/pepper it. Then I bring it to your cookout, and everyone loves it because it is simply the best thing ever.

What is your go-to macaroni salad? Is it a caprese, or something with meat, or balsamic? I’m curious to see what everyone else grew up with!

Did you guys enjoy Cold Salad Week? Are there other weeks you’d like us to do for you? Do I sense the audience wanting a chocolate week, perhaps?

The secret to a cold salad is a light, fresh dressing. Everything else is just mix and match. That’s the philosophy behind this pseudo-recipe, which we’re calling kitchen sink couscous because you can make it with whatever the contents of your larder happen to be. Everything but the kitchen sink!

A high veggie to noodle ratio is my personal preference, but you can adjust as necessary. Make about 6 cups (prepared) of a pasta, grain, or couscous, and chop enough vegetables to total 3 – 4 cups. Use whatever vegetables you like, just combine them all into a reasonable sized pile and add to your couscous. We happened to have snow peas, sun-dried tomatoes, green onions, bell pepper, and celery. They all went in the bowl!

Now for the perfect light dressing. Chop some garlic, juice some citrus, and combine with a little olive oil, rice vinegar, salt and pepper. Our amounts are listed below, but I recommend a 1:1:1 ratio for you liquids, as much garlic as you like, and then salt and pepper to taste.

Recipe:
6 cups Israeli Couscous (or the noodle/grain of your choice)
3-4 cups chopped vegetables (dealer’s choice)

Dressing:
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup lime juice
1 tsp salt
pinch pepper

We’re interrupting Cold Salad Week to bring you a review of the new Game of Thrones Beer. Our friends over at Fanboy Comics love Game of Thrones as much as we do, so we thought it fitting to have them drink and review this Blonde Ale. We hope you enjoy it, and we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow. Check out other FBC and GMS collaborations here!

Brewery Ommegang has teamed up with HBO to produce several limited edition Game of Thrones beers. AWESOME! The first one released is the Iron Throne Blonde Ale, and it’s a malty, golden beer, sunny enough to make a man of the Night Watch think he’s lounging in a wading pool down in Sunspear. The website describes the beer as “lightly malty, rounded out by honey malt sweetness.” Now, normally I don’t go for the malty beers, and I was a little hesitant at first. But, the more I drank, the more the other aspects of this beer opened up and merged with the maltiness to reveal a truly well balanced and bright beer worthy of a true king.

Personally, I lean more toward the hoppier American IPAs and clean Eastern European pilsners myself, and I was a little put off by the first sip. It had strong, caramel notes and was more flowery than House Tyrell. But, I soldiered on, and with each subsequent sip, the delicate balance of this refreshing beer revealed itself. The citrusy, peppery flavor from the grains of paradise, alongside the floral notes and the fluttery carbonation make each mouthful akin to biting into a crisp, juicy, autumn apple. The deep golden, cloudy color even reminds one of sparkling apple cider, but at 6.5% ABV, you’d do well to watch how much you drink in a sitting. The Iron Throne Blonde Ale has the weight and sharpness of its namesake but without all that pesky bloodshed.

It is available for a limited time and would, with its tongue-in-cheek label, make a fun and delicious addition to your finale viewing party this weekend. I know not all marriages are perfect, but the good people at Brewery Ommegang in Cooperstown, NY, teaming up with HBO seems to be a match made in Heaven!