Browsing Category Dessert

I am a fan of delicious cupcakes. I could not resist these, Holiday specialty cupcakes by Richard Ruskell, executive pastry chef at
Montage Beverly Hills. These cupcakes are beautifully gift wrapped in deliciousness. Richard Ruskell is celebrity chef and most recent winner of Food Network’s Last Cake Standing, started offering specialty cupcakes which use seasonal flavors and ingredients.

These special holiday cupcakes make a perfect gift that can be delivered to homes and residences located in the greater Los Angeles area. Be the life of the office party with these cupcakes! Fourteen cupcakes come packaged in a beautiful holiday-themed box, about $60 per box. What an impressively beautiful, dessert option for Californians to “wow” their guests this holiday.

And then I turned to the Desserts section of my “Pulitzer Cookbook” to finally create a 1978 NY Times recipe for Key Lime Pie.

I was a little shocked as I was creating it as this recipe calls for 5 egg yolks and condensed milk with some lime juice mixed in. The meringue top half is 5 egg white and sugar. WOW. Haven’t had a dessert like that in a long time. I substituted lemon juice for Cream of Tartar, because that doesn’t exist in French grocery stores (or certainly none in my neck of the woods). The only problem with this recipe was that I didn’t make a graham cracker crust, which I think is probably nearly essential for a real Key Lime Pie. I am sure there were some sort of cookies I could have bought (like McVities cookies) but I was running out of time.

It came out delicious, but would have been better with the graham cracker crust. Next time!

On the occasion of my baby boy’s 6-month birthday, I decided to throw a little party. I have always wanted to make Red Velvet cupcakes because when I discovered Red Velvet cake (just a few years ago), I was fascinated. The “Neiman Marcus” cookies (as I have also discovered are a hoax and not from Neiman Marcus) are also a favorite of my husband’s and mine.

As much as I love living in an ordered live, I have come to realize my cooking style is a bit chaotic. As you will see, I often don’t always have all the exact ingredients necessary for almost all my meals, so I improvise. And, as usual, I tend to multi-task. In case you are too bored to watch all the way through, I’ll recommend NOT ironing white curtains in the middle of making Red Velvet anything!

My first stop was lunch at Feast. Ok so Feast wasn’t on the list and didn’t even know Chicago’s Restaurant Week was happening. I wanted to try Feast out and this was a place Joe Kutchera recommended…he also joined me there for afternoon lunch.

The Salmon Teriyaki Spinach, orange, cucumber, and red onion salad over soba noodles was very good! I especially liked the flavor to the teriyaki sauce which enhanced the soba noodles and spinach salad.

Joe had Steak Tortilla Salad skirt steak, grilled onions, lettuce, avocado, grape tomatoes, crispy tortilla strips and cilantro herb dressing. I was invited to nibble on some of Joe’s salad which was also very good.

Feast- Gold Coast
25 E. Delaware
Chicago, IL 60611
312-337-4001

For my entrée the only way I could describe it was an East Asian style lamb with glazed vegetable and almonds. The sauce had a rich plum taste. I really enjoyed tough the lamb was a bit fatty which probably brought more flavor to this dish.

Jen had the grilled pork tenderloin braised savvy cabbage, medjool dates and red wine reduction. The red wine reduction and grilled pork made a perfect combination.

Wave did not want their customers to walk away with just dessert so they provided us with two desserts to taste. The roasted apple almond tart with cinnamon gelato and caramel sauce which the perfect ending to a great meal, but there’s more…we also tried the two combination that I thought would never play nice in the sandbox: dark chocolate Cremeux vanilla-lime tapioca — opposites do attract is I how I would describe it.

Wave
644 N. Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, IL 60611
312-255-4460

I was disappointed with sole though the roasted baby artichokes and potatoes were great. I did not understand why there was a roasted pepper sauce it did not go well with the sole. 

Perhaps it was busy the Saturday night, salmon was not available, that this portion of my restaurant week experience wasn’t up to my standards.

Bice Restaurant
158 E. Ontario
Chicago IL 60611
312-664-1474

Restaurant Week Chicago should be thought of more for the quality of food and atmosphere rather than a savings in a meal. There was so many other restaurants that I wanted to try I’ll either have to wait until next year or venture in on my own.

Well known food blogger, Noshtopia joined me in the fun.

Started with the Johnny Apple – green apples, pecans, pickled onions over arugula.

Entrée Braised Pork Rib over Risotto with Truffles delicious!

Big Finish was a Cuppa Red Hot Chocolate —-beyond heaven!

Avalon
480-656-0010
7707 E. McDowell Road
Scottsdale, AZ

Some ingenious casual cooks have a way of creating fabulous festive parties without breaking sweat on cooking. Lon Taylor is on of those ingenious cooks. His Super Bowl spread was delicious and delightful. Lon shares with us his recipe for down and dirty Louisiana style rice and beans. As easy as 1 2 3:
 
The Recipe:
He simply bought a box of Zatarain’s and combined it with a can of Eden’s Organic rice & beans mix. Then slice up and cook an Andouille sausage on the stove top for about 10 minutes. Once the sausage is done just add it to the rice & beans mix simmer on the stove. I Added pinch of paprika, with Tabasco sauce to taste and it’s good to go.

 

Lon laughs out loud when he say, “Wish I could give you a story that the recipe was handed down from my great uncle who grew peppers in Louisiana!”

In addition to Lon’s Louisiana’s Rice and Bean he also constructed a sandwich with a two types of cheese, ham and salami, chopped relish and olive chutney, and lite olive oil spread.

 

For dessert we had a selection of cupcakes from More Cupcakes.

Lon is truly the host with the most!

I can’t remember exactly when I began using Twitter personally. It could have been late 2006 early 2007. I recently setup a separate account for Daily Eats, which is @dailyeats. Having a DailyEats twitter account lets allows us tweet our new posts, get great tips or showcase from aspiring and established chefs, and get pitched/scooped on food stories from PR agencies.

I am looking forward to expanding the Daily Eats brand!

Additionally, DE has a YouTube channel. Daily Eats videos have enjoyed thousands of view. Especially Daily Eats Easy Cook Salmon video.

Thanks to @jackvinson tweet this morning and he introduced his twitter followers to Tammy Green’s book, “Chicago Cupcake Crawl” a book I will probably find very valuable and enlightening. I love cupcakes!

In April I was introduced to More Cupcakes – Chicago. A great name for a cupcake shop and an excellent tasting cupcake. What made More Cupcakes taste even better was how nice the owner is – they allow sampling – you don’t want to buy something to eat and find you don’t like the taste.

Because of Jack’s intro to Tammy Green’s book I thought won’t it be great to organize a cupcake crawl with Tammy! It would be so much fun.

Much success to you Tammy on your book!

This very yummy recipe comes directly from the experts the Millennium Alaskan Hotel Anchorage. I often thought Baked Alaska would be a difficult treat to under take but this recipe looks concise and simple to manage.

Baked Alaska Recipe: Courtesy of the Millennium Alaskan Hotel Anchorage

Have a delicious and Happy Holiday(s)!

My brother, Tom gave Anita Chu’s “A Field Guide to Candy” a try. For Thanksgiving, Tom made the Chocolate Peanut Butter candies. Tom’s candies have a familiar taste almost similar to a childhood favorite: Reese’s peanut butter cup.

But there is a freshness to Tom’s candies and choices that can be made with chocolate and peanut butter. I could image swapping out milk chocolate for dark chocolate and peanut butter for cashew butter. Tom is going to try other candies from Anita Chu’s book for December’s holidays.