Crunchy Szechuan Pork and Carrots

I had to draw the line when the lady from the chinese restaurant, after hearing my voice and my same-as-always-order, told me my address before I told it to her. That was before she asked for my phone number.

I mean, I cook and bake and post in a food blog. What was going on in my kitchen? When did I stop cooking for myself? I guess somewhere along a furiously hectic and changing work weeks together with my choice of baked goodies, which let´s face it, are what I choose given the chance. 

I love to bake for pleasure but I mostly cook to eat. As in bake sweet or yeasty things vs. cook savory dishes to actually feed myself.

Vintage Mondays - Brown Sugar Loaf with Ginger Honey Syrup

Finally, spring fruit is starting to appear in the market, so it´s time to make this focaccia, this gorgeous jam, a boozy cake, these fudgy brownies, and this refreshing salad.

This is what this city looks like these days. The Jacarandá, my favorite tree, is in full bloom, covering streets with those gorgeous lavender flowers. Move over cherry blossoms.

A little bit of everything...

Corn Basil Handpies #SundaySupper

If there´s a dish that is shared among friends in this country that is empanadas, or handpies or turnovers.
It´s the delivery or take-out food by excellence; we have all said, at one time or another, `we´ll just order some empanadas´ whenever there´s a gathering with friends in the horizon and there´s no one to do the cooking. We have a wide variety of fillings that include meat, chicken, cheese and onion, caprese, ham and cheese, spinach, and corn as the most common.

Today is a special post, involving friends and specifically friends in need.
Our helping hands theme for Sunday Supper, hosted by the phenomenal blogger and friendly Liz, of That Skinny Chick can Bake, came after the not-at-all friendly Sandy came and went. A devastating natural tragedy that left many homes and families in need of assistance of all kinds.

Herbed Olives

In moments where enough time is always eluding us, elaborate gatherings are not easy to put together and there´s always something pressing, marinating is a wonderful technique for the food enthusiast. If you sterilize jars properly, you can even have gifts at a moment´s notice.

We´re making Herbed Olives with our FFWD group. 

These olives take little time to prepare provided you have the ingredients ready. Olive oil is barely heated in a pan and spices, herbs and citrus peel is added, heated until fragrant and then poured onto olives that are waiting patiently in a bowl or jar.

Double Cornbread with Red Pepper, Jalapeños and Cheese

Spring is here and I´m cleaning my kitchen and my closet. Spring cleaning is in full swing at this house, though it would be good to have such interest in tidying and de-cluttering my home with every change of season, not just spring.

My refrigerator froze in some parts, something that became obvious with today´s cleaning chores. 

How can I go to sleep with a perfectly working fridge and wake up with frozen eggs, jalapeños, egg whites, cream cheese, salami and a few more items? Beats me, after all the weather is getting hotter, the fridge should be loosing cold if anything. 

So it was time to make cornbread. Because it´s almost Thanksgiving, because I´m getting rid of bits and pieces, because it tasted good and I haven´t had lunch. There are always many good reasons to make cornbread. Moist, tender, full of corn kernels, a bit of a kick from the peppers and overall really interesting flavor and crumb.

Brownies, The Best Ever?

This recipe took me by surprise. In modern times of excessive information and a million recipes of everything, the best-ever seemed suspicious to say the least. Another recipe name made to catch my attention. 

I mean, a question for food bloggers: who hasn´t made dozens of brownies and still can´t decide which one is the best ever? I can´t. I change my mind all the time. Depends, best-ever compared to what. The fudgiest? the most demanded by friends? the best time-result combination? See? It´s hard to choose one. 

And don´t get me started on non-traditional ones like raspberry walnut brownies or a favorite of mine with whiskey and raisins.

These dark beauties are our assignment for the Tuesdays with Dorie group, contributed by Rick Katz. Our host today is Monica of A Beautiful Mess, and you can find the recipe there.

Pumpkin Pecan Sheet Cake - a guest post at Magnolia Days

These sweet fingers of pumpkin pecan sheet cake are my contribution to my friend Renee´s blog, Magnolia Days. I´m guest posting over there, while she´s enjoying some family time in Germany. Oh, to be in Europe right now, that would be nice.

But for those celebrating Thanksgiving next week, the need is for pies and turkeys, relishes and sweet potatoes, or whatever it is that has to appear on your holiday table.

This cake is my favorite pumpkin pecan I have ever made. Not that I´ve made that many, but this is really, really good. Just saying, in case you need something extra to bake.

For me, since we don´t celebrate a thing this weekend I´ll just enjoy it with the warm spring days, dry, beautiful skies and an abundance of fruits and vegetables that makes it hard to choose.

So go over to Magnolia Days, have a look at this wonderful pumpkin pecan sheet cake recipe, and check out some of my friend´s impressive recipes like cinnamon bundt cake, apple strudel, goulash or minestrone. 

You can thank me later.

Vintage Mondays - Sesame Peas and Green Beans

Are you done with all the prepping? Are all the pies, sauces and stuffings made? Did you check everything off your list? What the hell am I asking right? It´s only Monday for god´s sake, I should give you a break. Said by the woman who buys her christmas gift on the 23^rd...

Anyway, here are some recipes from my blogging friends that might come in handy. Because there are never enough holiday recipes. Even if it´s just to look at them and file them away until next year.

A delectable pecan pie or almond tart;  scrumptious pumpkin bars and gorgeous cheesecake. Or are you still in need of some side dishes and appetizers like these lovely maple brussel sprouts, roasted squash or fabulous mushroom tart. Or if you´re really like me and don´t even have your bird ready, not that I celebrate thanksgiving because I don´t but still, take a look at the color of this turkey!

We know movies are an illusion, but still we tend to believe in fairy tales when it suits us. Let these images speak for themselves.

Sometimes I start reading something basically time wasting and a bit stupid, but then I find myself laughing, stupidly I admit. And then another one.

Bourbon Brown Butter Pecan Pie

I guess the time has come for me to bake my first pecan pie. The reason for my delay has to do with the over sweetness this pie usually implies. The only way then, is to make it at home.

I remember giving a recipe for traditional corn syrup pecan pie to a friend of a friend years ago. Every once in a while I run into her, and she never forgets to remind me of the great recipe I gave her, and how she makes it all the time. I have no idea which recipe I gave out, since I myself don´t have a favorite one. It figures, since I never made one. Duh.

Blueberry Pecan Applesauce Loaf

There are a few things in my freezer that need to be used if I want to make space for the upcoming summer´s ice creams and fresh fruit that will get frozen to use in the winter. Blueberries, peas, tortillas and several doughs which I don´t know really what they are. But that´s another story.

Chocolate Hazelnut Baby Bundt Cakes

There are a few things I hate about baking. The fact that vegetables sprays are the absolute best way to coat a bundt pan drives me nuts. That and using so much aluminum foil and plastic wrap. I even went out to buy some butter-flavored (the horror I know) spray before I began making these adorable chocolate hazelnut mini bundt cakes. Even though I use the million-dollar-gold-coated-can´t-bake-another-cake-without-buying-them molds, or so I thought at the time, the wrong recipe and not enough spray will get you unmolded half bundts.

That said, let´s get on with this fabulous recipe that made pretty mini bundt cakes, tastes so, so, so incredibly good and unmolded like a charm. After it rained a hefty dose of spray of course.

Beef Tenderloin with Roasted Asparagus and Red Onion Vinaigrette

There was a time, when I first discovered this online store, back in the time when it sold only books, that I went through severe shopping bouts. And I really want to emphasize severe. To the point where I got two boxes delivered in one week and didn´t have a clue as to what cookbooks where inside. To be clear, all I bought were cookbooks. Dozens and dozens of cookbooks. That was the end of the 1900´s and nothing could stop me from entering the new millenium with a truckload of cookbooks that would take me another thousand years to go through them.

But well, obsessions are obsessions and I´ve come to terms with the fact that I´m a cookbook and food magazine hoarder. I don´t mind really, and you shouldn´t either since there´s a big chance I can make you acquainted with many books and recipes you didn´t know were out there.

Vintage Mondays - Mystery Carrot Cake

Once again I lost all of my favorite links. It´s fair to say it´s the third time it happens. Or fourth. You know that once is bad luck, twice is stupidity, I wonder what the name for four is. Now, I finally devised a way to back them up. So all my favorite blogs gone, I´m starting all over again.
The silver lining is that each time it happens, it´s like spring cleaning my blog roll. Like most of us, because I know I´m not alone here, the favorites folder evolved into so many sub-folders that it was quite impossible to even know which ones were there anymore. 

Being at the right place at the right time, with a camera of course. Take a look at these pics.

This can very well be me on a plane. Especially the last quote.

Do you want to know what the bar code for your name is? Or any other name? Like you have nothing better to do on a monday, I know.

Apricot Pineapple Rum Sauce #SundaySupper

My list of homemade food gifts is more or less like the story of the fuitcake: the same one appears every year and it just stays there, untouched. Or the new year´s resolutions list. Which I don´t make anymore; haven´t for years.

We are having a homemade gift giving party around our Sunday Supper table today, hosted by the wonderful Susan. Are you ready for the amazing gifts from our kitchens we have made for today?

Homemade gifts, especially if you love to bake like me, sound like an obvious choice, not to mention the fact that many of your friends are expecting you show up with bags and boxes of whatever you decided to make,  things that will never be made in their own kitchens, that is unless they invite you and demand you bake for them.

Brown Sugar Cheesecake

This was supposed to be a chocolate mousse post. It´s Friday so it is time for a FFWD recipe. 

But in truth, I´m having pretty hectic weeks, with power cuts, a lot of heat on top of a lot of work. Not the fun work, the real-work work.

And I needed to bake this cheesecake to take over to a friend´s house and I have already posted my favorite dark chocolate mousse, which not only is fabulous, but has no sugar. Not that you would ever realize it. So another similar post when time is so short suddenly seemed like a very unattractive idea. I think this cheesecake more than makes up for it.

Butermilk Apple Cake

This week is getting on everybody´s nerves. It has been really hot and it´s barely november; so much heat is not supposed to happen until at least a month. The power went out yesterday in many parts of the city. It turns out a transformer exploded somewhere and most of the federal district was left in the dark. It came back together after three hours here and I can´t give thanks enough.

Cardamom Bundt Cake with Saffron Rosewater Cream #BundtaMonth

Baking a cake is, by my definition, a good thing. Always. And baking a bundt cake a little bit better. There is something about an unmolded beautiful patterned cake. It works every time. 
That said, this is my second attempt at this cake. So let´s just say that those first sentences didn´t apply for my first try. A low-rised cake with a crumb that looked like it took two steps towards rising and then decided it was not worth it, is really not a nice thing to see. Oh, it unmolded like a charm by the way, which is probably an even bigger slap on my face since it´s usually the downfall of many bundt cakes. 

So I went back to the trenches, pulled out my never fail recipe and whipped up the cake I should´ve made in the first place. So much for trying to innovate too much for this month´s Bundt a Month challenge. 
The theme is spices and it fits this time of year perfectly. I already made a zucchini raisin bundt with cinnamon streusel and a rum glazed pumpkin bundt cake. 
Our hosts are the Cake Duchess and Baker Street, two wonderful bakers and friends.

Buttermilk Crumb Muffins

A very summery spring is happening around these latitudes. The heat is starting to be felt and it talks of very hot summers. I guess baking will not be the smart thing to do around christmas, but for now the oven is on and I happily spend hours in the kitchen.

Today we are making really wonderful buttermilk crumb muffins for our Tuesdays with Dorie group, by contributing baker Marion Cunningham. 

Vintage Mondays - Chocolate Sour Cherry Scones

After a huge storm which flooded many areas of this city last week, including my neighbourhood, we´re finally having what can be referred to as wonderful spring days. Perfect way to start the week.

So many things happen around the world at all times. So much creativity it´s mind-blowing. Take the common rice for example. Nothing particularly interesting about it. Take a look at these and you might change your mind.

This is the strangest entry I ever found in wikipedia. I don´t even know if I completely understand the explanation. How´s that for feeling dumb?

Lentil and Chorizo Stew #SundaySupper

I might be the only person eating a stew when it´s 32ºC / 90ºF outside. This happens when you participate in Sunday Supper and the theme is stick-to-your-bones food. Thanks for modern comforts like the air conditioning. Today our host is Susan from The Girl in the Little Red Kitchen and the list of recipes is absolutely soul warming.

Was it worth it? Totally. This lentil and chorizo stew is my favorite way to beat the cold. It came together through the years, tweaking this and that until I found the right combination of spice, vegetables, type of chorizo, bacon, amount of tomato and lentils. This is a very traditional dish here, and as such, there are endless variations, everyone has their favorite and every house has the perfect recipe. Today you´ll have to settle for mine. 

Mushroom, Leek and Shallot Quiche

I´m very used to making quiche. Which is a french, fancy sounding word for tart. The kind that has a buttery crust and rich filling which involves a binding cream and eggs mixture. Today in our French Fridays with Dorie group we are making mushroon and shallot quiche, to which I added leeks and chives. Why? Because they were there and they really go perfect together. The thing about quiche is pretty much like frittata or risotto: it´s the perfect way to clean your fridge of odds and ends. Vegetables and cheeses, deli meats, anything and everything can go into a quiche.