10
June 30, 2008 | Filed Under Memes | 30 Comments
I love how the yellow roses compliment the Yellow Cupcakes in this photo.
Kat of Our Adventures in Japan has tagged me for this latest meme called 10.
Here are the rules:
1. Post 10 of your own favorite food shots.
2. Pass the opportunity on to others by leaving a message on their comments page just so they’re aware of it.
I had a hard time choosing just 10 photos but here’s what I came up with.
Paz
Roasted Baby Roma Tomato and Feta Tart
This photo brings back good memories of making my very first (and only) tart. It was delicious, too!
My very first blog photo of the very first dessert I prepared. I still get excited thinking about it.
I love colorful food and I love how the photo is full of color.
Oven-Roasted, Prosciutto-Wrapped Asparagus
This photo reminds me of how much I love prosciutto and asparagus — oven-roasted!
Fried Yellow Plantain (Kelewele)
This is my all-time favorite comfort food — plantain. The photo has me salivating.
Another earlier dessert I learned to prepare. Very simple. Very good.
This photo reminds me of the best-tasting carrots I ever had. Yum! And so easy to prepare.
I love this salad. The meatballs give it an extra punch. I’m glad the photo came out well. The tomatoes entice me, too. 
I like carrots and peanuts and this was an interesting salad. Crunchy! I think I got lucky with this photo, which I like.
So, there you have it — my ten favorite food shots. ;-)
There’s no set number of people to tag, so I’m tagging 10 bloggers. You can do the same — tag 10 bloggers or less. On the other hand, you don’t have to tag anyone. This meme is NOT obligatory. You DON’T have to participate if you don’t want. It’s totally optional. With that in mind, I tag the following:
1- Courtney from Coco Cooks
2- Pretty Baker from Pretty Baking in Israel
3- Sra from When My Soup Came Alive
4- Rosa from Rosa’s Yummy Yums
5- Elizabeth from Blog from Our Kitchen
6- Rebecca from From Argentina with Love
7- Tanna from My Kitchen in Half Cups
8- Laylita from Laylita’s Recipes
9-Paul and Mike from Eat Me
10-Anyone else who would like to participate. Let me know you’re doing it, so that I can check it out on your blog.
New York Monday #129: Cooling Off!
June 29, 2008 | Filed Under New York Monday | 12 Comments
Spray of water from open fire hydrant
During the hot and humid summer days, some city kids will open the fire hydrant and play in its icy spray of water, in hopes of trying to keep cool. This photo was taken in one Bronx neighborhood, where the kids did just that. You’re not supposed to open the hydrants but the Fire Department is understanding of the circumstances and prefers to open the hydrants for the kids, themselves (instead of the kids doing it). That way, they open the hydrant in a safe manner and put a special gadget on the hydrant so that too much water isn’t wasted.
Sometimes, passing cars are splashed with the water from the open hydrant. I thought that drivers don’t like that but someone told me that some drivers don’t mind because they get the outside of their car clean that way. Who knew?
When I was younger, I remember the kids on my block opened the hydrant one sweltering day. The older kids, bullies that they sometimes were, would grab the younger kids and hold them in front of the full force blast of water. Not fun for their victims. They grabbed my sister and held her in front of the gushing water till her friends helped her get away. I’m glad that never happened to me.
Happy Monday. Have a great week.
Paz
Sour Cream Coffee Cake
June 23, 2008 | Filed Under Nectar and Light, Fellow Bloggers, Cakes, Baking | 20 Comments
Recently, I had some dental work done and couldn’t chew or eat for a while. When I finally felt better, I decided to treat myself by making this Sour Cream Coffee Cake. Oh my goodness! Delicious! Highly recommended! Initially, I was skeptical about how sour cream would taste in a coffee cake but the ingredient pleasantly surprised me. The sour cream made the cake moist and counterbalanced the sweetness of the cake.
The recipe instructs dusting powdered sugar on the cake after it’s baked, but by the time the cake had cooled, I’d forgotten to do it. I just wanted to take the photo and have my slice (or two) of cake. So, you’ll see that this cake in the photos is without the sugar dusting. It still tasted good. The cake was already sweet with ingredients that included white and brown sugars. I don’t think I missed anything by leaving out the powdered sugar. The cake lasted about a day, then it was all gone.
I plan on making this cake more often. Thanks, Jenifer!
Paz
Sour Cream Coffee Cake
~ 1 c. butter
~ 2 c. sugar
~ 2 eggs
~ 1 t. vanilla
~ 1 t. salt
~ 1 t. baking powder
~ 2 c. flour
~ 1 c. sour cream
~ 1 tsp. cinnamon
~ 1/2 c. brown sugar
~ 1/2 c. chopped pecans
Butter a bundt pan thoroughly and preheat the oven to 350F. Sift the flour, salt and baking powder together and set aside. Mix the brown sugar, cinnamon and pecans together and set aside. Cream the butter, sugar and eggs - fold in the sour cream and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients to the batter. Pour half of the batter into the bundt pan then top the batter with all of the brown sugar mixture. Top that with the remaining batter and knock the pan on the counter a bit until the batter settles. Bake for 1 hour. Let the cake cool for 10 minutes before removing from the pan. Flip onto a plate and dust with powdered sugar {after it cools a bit more.}
New York Monday #128: The San Remo
June 22, 2008 | Filed Under New York Monday | 12 Comments
Located on Central Park West, The San Remo is a luxury coop apartment building. Past and present tenants include Steven Spielberg, Glenn Close, Bono (U2), Bruce Willis, Demi Moore and Rita Hayworth… The building is not far from John Lennon’s former residence, another popular building called The Dakota.
Happy Monday, all!
Paz
Pollo con Papas a la Florencia/Florencia’s Chicken and Potatoes
June 16, 2008 | Filed Under Argentinean Cuisine, Potatoes, South American Cuisine, From Argentina with Love, Christine Cooks, Poultry, Fellow Bloggers, Cuisines | 13 Comments
I’ve written about how Christine’s Sunday Night Whole Roasted Chicken tastes so good that I’m unable to spare a few minutes to take a photo for the blog. I’ve made the roasted chicken several times since writing about it on the blog, and each time, I want to eat it immediately! No time to stop and take photos. Forget that.
Well, I’ve found another winning roasted chicken recipe that Rebecca of From Argentina with Love shares with her readers — Chicken and Potatoes. When I finished making the Chicken and Potatoes, I mustered all my human strength not to eat the chicken immediately. This time I was able to spare a few seconds to photograph the Chicken and Potatoes. Just barely. This simple Roasted Chicken dish was soooo tasty. As Rebecca described, the potatoes did have an extra tang, which made it extra special. She shares the secret to the delicious potatoes in the recipe below.
So… Now, I have two AWESOME roasted chicken recipes. Yay for me!
Paz *excited*
Pollo con Papas a la Florencia/Florencia’s Chicken and Potatoes
Rebecca’s note:
Florencia made this for me as one of my first meals the first time I met her, and I had never tasted anything like it! Since then, it’s one she knows will be a hit, and she makes it anytime we visit. It’s one of the most satisfying meals I can think of–and the simplest to prepare! The secret is the white wine–it gives the potatoes an extra tang.
one whole chicken, cleaned
coarse salt
pepper
one lemon
olive oil
1 cup dry white wine
5 cloves garlic, peeled but still whole
5 russet potatoes, peeled and sliced into ‘fries’
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Rinse the chicken and remove the packet inside. Put the chicken in a baking pan, and drizzle olive oil over the chicken, rubbing it into the skin. Squeeze the juice of the lemon over the chicken, and stuff the lemon halves into the cavity. Salt and pepper the chicken to taste.
Meanwhile, put the cut potatoes in a bowl and drizzle in olive oil, using your hands to mix them around so that they are lightly coated in oil. Salt liberally.
Put the potatoes around the chicken in the casserole dish. Place the garlic cloves around in the potatoes. Bake for about 40 minutes. After this time, pull the chicken out, and pour the wine over the potatoes. Increase the oven temperature to 450 degrees. Return the chicken to the oven, rotating the pan, for about 30 minutes more, testing for doneness using a meat thermometer, 170 degrees.
New York Monday #127: Meeting at The City Bakery
June 15, 2008 | Filed Under New York Monday | 15 Comments
Enjoying an all berry scone and lemonade
The City Bakery
18th Street between 5th and 6th Avenue
Last week, I got to meet blogging friend, Pille of Nami-Nami. She was visitig from Estonia. Pille’s blog was the second one I started reading after I’d discovered the world of food blogs. Did I ever tell you how I’d started my food blog? Actually, I’m digressing. That’s another story for another day.
So… Where was I? Oh, yes…Pille’s was the second blog I’d started reading (If you want to know, Melissa’s The Traveler’s Lunchbox was my first food blog to discover and enjoy.)
Pille (pronounced PEE-LA — I’d been pronouncing it ‘Phil’, which is soooo wrong and embarrassing) always has fascinating meals and recipes, including Estonian ones on her blog. I remember that one of first blogger recipes I’d made was Pille’s. A simple Carrots with Rosemary and Orange salad successfully made gave me the inspiration to continue trying other recipes I found on other food blogs.
So, Pille made it to New York City — unfortunately in the middle of our first wicked heatwave (I’m hoping it’s our last heatwave. I’m already looking forward to the fall season.) — but she made it!
At Pille’s suggestion,we met at The City Bakery, which is located on 18th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues. It’s a nice, large, comfortable bakery that provides comfortable seating, good air conditioning (especially during a hot and humid heatwave), and lots of scrumptious baked goods.
Unfortunately by the time I’d arrived at the bakery, the blazing sun and brutal heat had robbed me of my appetite. I couldn’t eat or drink a thing. The only thing I had a taste for was water. Otherwise, forget about it.
Fortunately, Pille was able to enjoy her lemonade with an all berry scone, which I was supposed to share with her. It did look delicious.
I had a good time hanging out with Pille and look forward to the next time she visits New York. It’s always fun to meet a fellow blogger.
Paz
New York Monday #126: Looking for the Subway?
June 9, 2008 | Filed Under New York Monday | 10 Comments
Looking for the subway? Here’s a sign to one subway entrance near 59th and Fifth Avenue. You can’t miss it. Have a happy week, everyone.
Paz
Empanadas of the Month! Empanadas Mendocinas (Mendoza-Style Empanadas)
June 8, 2008 | Filed Under Empanada of the Month, South American Cuisine, Argentinean Cuisine, From Argentina with Love, Food Blogging Events, Cuisines | 22 Comments
I’ve always had a challenging time making empanadas. So far, I’ve made them a total of three times. The dough I make from scratch is always thick because I have a problem rolling it out properly. One time, I tried to make a dessert empanada. I had a different kind of problem with the dough. Instead of too thick, it was too sticky. Ugh! My empanadas tasted good but not very good-looking. Since I always seemed to have a challenging time making the empanada shell, I stopped making them, even though I love to eat them.
When Rebecca of From Argentina with Love announced a food blogging event called Empanadas of the Month, which she was hosting, I decided to rise to the challenge again. In this monthly event, Rebecca provides a new empanada recipe for us to make. The first recipe is for a classic Mendoza-style empanada. Rebecca’s husband and friend, Carina, are from Mendoza, Argentina.
According to Rebecca, Mendoza-style empanadas are baked, instead of fried. They are filled with seasoned ground beef, green olives and a slice of egg. Then the empanada is sealed with a special technique called ‘repulgue’, where the edges of the empanada are folded and pressed repeatedly until they create a decorative pattern.
Rebecca provided a video with her friend Carina narrating, in Spanish, how to seal the empanadas using the repulgue technique.
"¡Perfecto!" (Perfect!), "¡Muy bien!" (Very good!), "¡Eso!" (That’s it!), Carina would encourage as Rebecca performed a perfect repulgue style technique on the empanadas. At the end, Carina and the video guy applauded Rebecca for her excellent work.
I would have loved my own cheering empanado-making team with me. With that in mind, I tried to recreate what I saw on the video. I even imagined that Carina encouraged me. "Perfecto, Paz!" "¡Muy bien, Paz!" "¡Eso, Paz!" "Applause!"
*sigh* It didn’t quite work out well. You should have seen me trying to do the repulgue technique. It was quite hilarious, actually. I think the technique I performed was something that could only be called the ‘Paz Pathetic’ technique. I think I’ll have to go to Carina’s kitchen for a personal lesson. In the meantime, I did the best I could.
So, here are my humble empanadas Mendocinas. They didn’t turn out bad at all.
Oh! By the way, I used the ready made, store-bought dough for the empanadas. Interesting note: Rebecca calls them ‘tapas’ but when I went to the store asking for ‘tapas’, everyone gave me a strange look and one store employee flat out told me he didn’t know what I was talking about before turning his back on me. After searching on my own, I found the dough, which was called ‘discos’ (para empanadas)/disks (for empanadas). Ahhh! Interesting! I suppose they have different names for the dough in different places.
The dough tasted fine but I like the idea of making my own, which I think would tasted much better. So, I’ll start practicing how to make it again, one of these days.
All in all, I’m happy about my Mendoza-style empanadas. I’m ready for my applause.
Thanks Rebecca. This was fun.
Paz
Ed. Note: Rebecca has posted a roundup of the works of those who participated. You can find delicious-looking empanadas here.
Receta por Empanadas Medocinas de la familia Oliva-Quiroz
Mendocino Empanadas from the Oliva-Quiroz family
For the filling:
2 lbs. ground beef
1 cup shortening or lard (you can add less or omit this if necessary)
2 lbs. onion
3 Tablespoons smoked paprika
4 teaspoons cumin
green olives, pitted and cut into slices, as many as is necessary
3 hard-boiled eggs, cut into rounds
salt and pepper to taste
crushed red pepper, to taste
For the construction: A glass of water 1 egg, beaten flour for the pan The meat can be made a day in advance. Put the onions, sliced finely in rounds, in a frying pan and salt them. Add the ground beef and cook, then add salt and pepper to taste. Next add the lard and mix well, so that it’s incorporated-the lard, the meat and the onion together. when it’s all cooked, add the crushed red pepper (to taste) and the cumin and mix well. When the mix is ready, let cook and add the paprika and stir well.
The assembly: Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Put the tapas on a flat surface, lightly floured. With a tablespoon, put a little of the meat filling in the center of the dough round. Add a slice of the olive and a piece of the hard boiled egg.
Then moisten the edge on the top half of the round with a little water on your finger. Fold the bottom half of the dough up until the edges meet and seal with your fingers by pressing down. The empanada should have a half-moon shape.
Use the palms of the hands to pack the filling firmly in the center. Next, fold the edges with the Repulgue: using your fingertip, fold one corner of the empanada over, pressing down firmly. Go to the edge again and repeat, pressing firmly each time. Go around the edge of the empanada and you’ll get a spiral pattern.
Beat an egg in a shallow dish and paint the top of each sealed empanada so that when they bake, they have a shiny, golden shell. Spread flour lightly over several cookie sheets, and place the finished empanadas on top. Put the empanadas in to bake for 12 to 15 minutes-they should be sizzling and very golden brown on top. Take out and eat very carefully while hot!
Berenjena Asada/Grilled Eggplant
June 2, 2008 | Filed Under From Argentina with Love, Argentinean Cuisine, South American Cuisine, Eggplant, Foods I Never Liked Before Until I Started to Cook, Vegetables, Fellow Bloggers, Cuisines | 12 Comments
Lately, I’ve been enjoying a relatively new food blog by Rebecca of From Argentina with Love. It’s a lovely blog that gives her experience in Argentina and mouth-watering recipes, and mesmerizing photos.
In one post, she wrote a story about how she and her husband got into an accident with a truck driver. Interestingly enough, later, the truck driver shared his lunch with them — marinated eggplant, which his wife had made for him. Rebecca described it as the best eggplant she’d ever tasted. I very much loved the story and the look and sound of the meal that I decided to make it.
Well, I’m sad to write that my marinated eggplant dish did not turn out well at all. It seemed relatively simple enough to make, but I apparently took some wrong turns on my cooking adventure road. I cooked the eggplant too long and I think I left the fire too high that the poor eggplant practically fell apart. It didn’t look appetizing at all and unfortunately it tasted even worse. I kept it in the fridge for five days before finally acknowledging that it really belonged in the garbage.
Later, Rebecca posted another interesting and easy-sounding eggplant recipe — Berenjena Asada/Grilled Eggplant. I could handle that, I thought to myself. I set out to make it. This time, it was smooth sailing for me. No problems. And my grilled eggplant tasted delicious! Yes!
I’m definitely going to try making the marinated eggplant again. I’m pretty sure that I’ll do a better job the next time around.
Paz
Grilled Eggplant
2 eggplants, washed and cut into 1/2 inch thick rounds
coarse salt
crushed red pepper
oregano
olive oil
Put the eggplant rounds in a roasting pan and sprinkle abundantly with salt. Let them ’sweat’, and then drain them. Drizzle generously with olive oil, and sprinkle with oregano and crushed red pepper. Place on the grill, over indirect heat, until soft in the center — they will appear juicy and have grill marks.
The marinated eggplant that was not meant to be. I will try to make it again.
In the meant time, go here to see what it’s really supposed to look like.
New York Monday #125: Russian Tea Room
June 1, 2008 | Filed Under New York Monday | 7 Comments
Passing by the Russian Tea Room in the early weekday morning.
Most likely these pedestrians are headed to work.
Has anyone been to the Russian Tea Room? It’s on 57th Street, a few buildings away from Carnegie Hall. Founded in 1927, it was originally a hangout for Russian expatriates, then for those in the entertainment industry. Today, just about anyone goes there.
Happy Monday, all!
Paz
The window contains these lovely dolls, the menu and other restaurant-related paraphernalia.
Interesting-looking detailed door.
A close up of the door. Is this a rabbit or hare? What do you think?
Another closeup of the door. This looks like a dog to me. Yes? No?
Scratch that. Kathleen tells me, in the comments section, that it is an ancient deer design.
