TV. Food. Pop Culture.
My lovely friends Julia and Lindsey held a potluck dinner party last night with a Middle Eastern theme. I knew everyone would be bringing stuff like couscous and hummus and tagines, but I wanted to do something different and unexpected. That’s when I thought of Helmand, an Afghani restaurant in both Cambridge, MA and San …
Continue reading “ADVENTURES IN DOMESTICITY: Fun With Gourds, Afghani Style! (a.k.a. Kaddo Bourani)”
Recently, I received yet another gift certificate from CSN Stores with the stipulation that whatever I purchase from the site I would then review. This time around I opted for a hand blender, which may seem excessive considering that I already have a food processor, a mini food processor, and a Magic Bullet (with a …
Continue reading “ADVENTURES IN DOMESTICITY: Moroccan Carrot Soup Edition”
Once again, CSN Stores has furnished me with a lovely gift certificate on the condition that I review whatever purchases I make with it. This time around I nabbed four items: a hand blender, a candy thermometer, a cooking sheet, and a four-cup angled liquid measure. I decided I would test out the candy thermometer …
Continue reading “ADVENTURES IN DOMESTICITY: Espresso Chocolate Caramel Bars”
Well, it’s January 3rd, and everyone is slowly getting back to real life after a heady December full of parties, wassail, and poor food choices. There wasn’t much TV to watch over the past week and a half; so I focused on more unhealthy endeavors: eating and drinking. The result is a small backlog of …
Continue reading “ADVENTURES IN DOMESTICITY: Banana Crunch Muffins Edition”
After a long, drawn-out process, we finally have a winner for the free Cool Whip gift basket. I whittled down the entries to five contenders, made four, and offered up three to a judging panel of eight people. Together we all sampled the goods, and after some discussion and debate, we decided upon one pie …
Last but not least in the Cool Whip gift basket contest (sorry, the margarita pie didn’t make the cut) is Penny’s Crunchy Caramel Apple Pie. The name alone was enough to get my stomach growling. I had never actually made an apple pie before; the closest being a run of apple cake/tart tatins last fall …
Continue reading “PIE FINALIST #4: Crunchy Caramel Apple Pie”
The third pie in the Cool Whip gift basket contest seemed to be the most promising of the bunch. It’s the recipe that my friends and I gravitated to most: LynnB’s Chocolate Amaretto Crunch Pie. Made with chocolate, Amaretto, Amaretti cookies, and almonds, it looked to be the decadent and sophisticated pie that I knew …
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The second pie I made for the Cool Whip gift basket contest was a recipe that the readers en mass implored me to make: the chocolate meringue pie. Of all the pies, this was certainly one of the most intriguing, what with its spicy, savory elements adding a bit of surprise to the proceedings. The …
Continue reading “PIE FINALIST #2: Chocolate Chili Meringue Pie”
The contest for the Cool Whip gift basket continues to move forward. Last week, I narrowed the field down to five semi-finalists, and of those five, I selected four finalists (I know, not a major whittling down of contenders). I then spent Thursday and Friday baking pie, culminating in an eight-person tasting Friday night. The …
I recently purchased Fuchsia Dunlop’s Sichuan cookbook Land of Plenty and have been slowly working my way through various recipes (see pics from my first few tries here). So far I’ve been happy with the results, but it wasn’t until I took on Strange Flavored Chicken that I felt I had truly hit a home …
Continue reading “ADVENTURES IN DOMESTICITY: Strange Flavored Chicken Edition”
