What I love about winter is that it’s when some of the brightest, cheeriest fruits are available: oranges of all kinds. And beyond the basic navel, there are other delicious citrusy goodies to be had, like clementines and satsumas. To be honest, I’ve never really worked with either of them. Sure, I’ve had the odd clementine now and again, but I was mostly a navel girl. And satsumas, a variation of mandarin oranges that originated in Japan, were never really on my radar until recently. Continue reading
Category Archives: Eat/Cook/Learn
Learnist Love: Holiday Prep
Me: What do you mean, there’s only 12 more days til Christmas?
Calendar: That’s what I’m saying, you have a week and a half.
Me: No, that’s not right. I have way more time than that.
Calendar: Uhhhh yeah no, you don’t.
Me: Yes I do.
Calendar: Yeah no. That’s not how time works.
If you’re like me, you’ve probably had similar conversations with your calendar. Probably quietly. I mean, if other people heard you talking to your calendar, they might think you were crazy. And you’re not craz…ier than anyone else.
But just in case you’re starting to feel a bit crazy about the impending holidays, don’t worry. I’ve been assembling some great boards on Learnist to help you make it through.
Let’s start with gifts. The best gifts are homemade…
Continue reading
Champagne Wednesday: The D’Artagnan
Champagne Wednesday is, as you probably remember, our quick, easy to way to liven up the boring midweek with a bit of bubbly. We do this by buying the tiny, 187-ml bottles of sparkling wines that you can get at grocery stores and Whole Foods and making two little cocktails out of them.
This week’s cocktail was the D’Artagnan, a nice little mix of orange, Grand Marnier and sparkling wine. I’ve noticed that most champagne recipes have a citrus flair to them. I think next week we’ll try something entirely different, but this one was pretty good. Continue reading
Bousou La Tmssou (Algerian Cookies) and the Food Blogger Cookie Swap
I was very excited to learn about the Food Blogger Cookie Swap this year. I love getting mail from random strangers, I love cookies and I love the food blogging community so everything about it appealed to me, including the opportunity to donate to Cookies for Kids’ Cancer.
I decided to make a recipe I’ve had in my Evernote recipe notebook for years but never got around to making, an Algerian treat called “Bousou La Tmssou” or some variation of that. These are adorable little things made very simply with powdered sugar, ghee (clarified butter), flour and orange blossom water. Continue reading
Champagne Wednesday: French 75
I’ve decided on the perfect description for this #champagnewednesday thing: “It’s like a tiny Christmas, covered in bubbles.” I think that pretty adequately sums things up.
This week’s cocktail is called the “French 75″–a pretty potent blend of gin, lemon and sparkling wine. We used Meyer lemon and cava in ours. It was good, seriously potent, but I think I’d make a few swaps next time, namely that instead of lemon juice and powdered sugar, I’d make a lemon simple syrup. Also, a bit of ginger. I feel kind of ginger-y these days.
M&M Amaretto Shortbread Cookies
This is one of those weeks that just calls for tiny m&m cookies. I don’t know what it was. Maybe it’s excitement from my Skillshare class starting this week. Maybe it’s end-of-the-year stress. Maybe it was half a bag of tiny M&Ms sitting leftover on my counter and a half bottle of Amaretto out on the bar. Who’s to say, really?
The point is, there are two things currently in my house that we should all strive to emulate. Continue reading
Lemon Cranberry Cream Cheese Muffins
You like all of those words. You like them individually. You’ll also like them together. You’ll want them to hang out more, maybe rent an apartment in New York together. You’ll want them to have an insanely popular television show on TLC where you can follow along with their hopes, dreams, careers, personal relationships, good times and inevitable betrayals. And you’ll cry at the reunion show, “Lemon Cranberry Cream Cheese Muffins: The Next Batch” because no one thought that Cranberry would show up, but she will. She will.
(This is why you shouldn’t write blog posts when you’re tired.) Continue reading
Champagne Wednesday: A Mango-Ginger Beer Cocktail
Champagne Wednesday may just be the best idea I’ve ever had that involved champagne. It’s really a nice little pick-me-up on what is maybe the most “meh” day of the week. This time, I got inspired by the blood orange sparklers from the lovely gals at We Ae Not Martha. I didn’t have any blood orange juice available though, so I took a different route with mango juice and orange biggers. I still ended up at the desired location, though: the corner of Delicious St and Bubbly Avenue. Continue reading
Reese’s Cake
My friend Mac recently had a birthday. His request? A peanut butter cup cake.
Challenge accepted.
So I browsed through my collection of cake recipes and thought about my plan of attack. I decided that what I wanted was a two layer chocolate cake with a layer of peanut butter frosting in the middle and a crown of tiny peanut butter cups on the top. Continue reading
Champagne Wednesdays: Strawberry Delight
I have recently decided that certain things need to start being a way of life. One of these things is Champagne Wednesday. What, you may ask, is Champagne Wednesday? Well, my good man/woman/non-gendered person/furry, Champagne Wednesday is a celebration of the everyday. You combine the normal humdrum that is Wednesday with the sparkle and verve of unexpected champagne. Well, I guess it’s not really unexpected now that I’ve told you we’re going to do it every week. But it’s delightful nonetheless! Continue reading
Sugar-free Cinnamon Almonds
I like having little snack foods around the house. Something I can just grab a quick handful of as I go about my day, cleaning house, playing with the dogs, being awesome, avoiding doing chores. I like these snacks to be crunchy but flavorful and preferably something easy to make. I also like a variety of flavors…I bore easily, after all. Hey, let’s go ride bikes!
I’m just kidding. It’s too cold outside to ride bikes.
Anyway, these almonds are great. I made them last year as Christmas gifts. I started making them again this fall as snacks for get-togethers or just to keep around the house. I’ve tried a few different flavors, my favorites being rosemary-olive oil, and cinnamon-sugar. The pumpkin spice were pretty good, too. 
Last year, I made these with regular sugar but this year I started making them with Splenda so that my sugar-conscious friends could still enjoy them and to be honest, you really can’t tell the difference.
Everyone loves munching on the sweet (or savory) and crunchy little snacks. If you need a snack to put out before holiday meals this year, this is it. They also make great, hand-made gifts wrapped up in pretty cellophane bags and tied with a bow. And if you get almonds from a bulk-food co-op or store like Costco, they can be really affordable too!
Sugar-free Cinnamon Almonds
Ingredients
- 4 cups whole blanched almonds
- 1 egg white
- 1/2 cup Splenda
- 1 heaping tablespoon cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 250F.
- Whip the egg white until frothy (just a minute or so). Add in the splenda and cinnamon and the fold in the almonds. Stir until the almonds are thoroughly coated in the mixture.
- Line a baking pan with parchment or tinfoil and spread the almonds out on the pan. Bake at 250F for one hour. Let cool and eat! Store in an airtight container.
Notes
More interested in the rosemary-olive oil almonds? Replace the egg white with 1/4 cup olive and replace the Splenda and cinnamon with a couple tablespoons of chopped fresh rosemary.
For pumpkin spice almonds, sub a tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice for the cinnamon in this recipe.
And don't forget all the other flavors you could try---chili and lime (a bit of lime juice and zest and chili powder), cocoa almonds (canola oil, cocoa powder, confectioner's sugar), or even vanilla bean almonds (scrape the seeds from a vanilla bean or use vanilla bean paste and mix that into white or brown sugar). Be creative! And enjoy.
© Have Fork, Will Eat
Chocolate Cream Cheese Mousse
This mousse won’t give you diabetes. Seriously. I can’t make this claim about much of my food (coughapplesyrupcough) but this mousse is actually sugar-free. Free of regular sugar, anyway. I’ve been experimenting with sugar substitutes and this recipe is one of my new favorites. It’s also free of one other thing: effort. If you can put things in a mixing bowl and blend them together, you can make this mousse. It’s great for days when you’re low on time, or low on energy and want a creamy, chocolaty fix. I’m feeling under the weather myself today, so this is my quick-fix pick-me-up.
Enjoy 
Sugar-free Chocolate Cream Cheese Mousse
Ingredients
- 8 oz cream cheese
- 1/2 cup Splenda (or similar sugar substitute)
- 3 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1 cup cold heavy whipping cream (hey, I didn't say this was lowfat)
- (optional: dark chocolate shavings for garnish (may contain sugar))
Instructions
- Cut the cream cheese into smaller chunks and put it into a mixing bowl with the Splenda and cocoa powder. Turn your mixer or beaters on medium and blend well. Drizzle in the whipping cream and continue to beat a few more minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary, until well incorporated. Serve immediately (with a chocolate shavings garnish if desired).
Notes
I ran the ingredients that I used through a nutritional calculator and it came out with approximately: 405 calories; 9g carbs; 41g fat; 6g protein; 2g fiber per serving. Again, that's an approximation and your mileage may vary.
© Have Fork, Will Eat
My Cherry Amour
Last weekend, a terrible thought hit me. “Summer is practically over,” I thought. “It might as well be September.”
But that’s crazy. Summer is far from over. Summer is merely at its peak. Summer tastes sweet, juicy and goes well with cream soda. You know how I know this? Because summer is currently on sale in one of its purest forms: cherries.
Prompted by what turned out to be a fantastic idea by Whole Foods, we threw a cherry party this week. That’s right. Cherry all the things.
[pullquote align=”right”]
Did you know that Michigan is the cherry capital of the world? In fact, according to Wikipedia, the Traverse City area alone produces up to 360,000,000 pounds of cherries per year.
[/pullquote]
I’ve never actually cooked with fresh cherries before. I’ve used dried ones in cookies and oatmeal but never used fresh. Part of my hesitation was that I generally preferred strawberries, having not tasted how good cherries could really be before this week. Part of my hesitation was due to this idea that cherries are hard to use. I mean, pits? Stems? Let’s just call the whole thing off. But no. Turns out, fresh cherries are actually really easy to use, especially if you make a small investment in the right hardware.
So I thought to myself…can I make an entire meal with cherries in every dish? Yes. Yes I can. Challenge accepted.
[heading style=”2″]Menu![/heading]
With recipes and bonus links below!
Appetizers:
- cherry salsa (fresh sweet cherries, red onion, garlic, serrano peppers, lime juice and zest)
- cherry gazpacho (sweet cherries, cucumbers, tomatoes, bell peppers, oil, vinegar and basil)
Main course and side:
- sirloin-cherry burgers with melted brie (ground sirloin, chopped fresh cherries)
- cherry-cranberry coleslaw (coleslaw mix, dried cherries, dried cranberries, cherry syrup, vinegar and mayo)
Dessert
- chocolate fondue with berries (cherries, raspberries and strawberries, marshmallows and graham crackers; fondue is semisweet chocolate, cream and amaretto liqueur)
Drinks
- Cherry cream soda (cream soda with cherry syrup and Black Cherry Cream soda from Sprechers)
- Cherry mojito slushies (cherry syrup, lime juice and zest, fresh cherries, rum and mint)
- Cherry rum and cokes (cherry syrup, cane sugar Coca-Cola and dark rum)
Yes. It was a thing. A red, sweet, full-belly kind of thing. Any my challenge to you now is…what kind of cherry dishes are you going to make? If you haven’t tried experimenting with fresh cherries before, trust me–now is the time.
I’d also like to thank Whole Foods for the inspiration for this party, as well as providing me with a gift card to procure the ingredients.
[heading style=”1″]Recipes[/heading]
Cherry Gazpacho
A smooth fresh cold soup of summer vegetables, fruits and bread. Adapted from Food & Wine
Ingredients
- 2 slices sourdough, cubed
- 2 baby cucumbers, seedless, roughly cut
- 2 bell peppers, chopped
- 2 roma tomatoes, chopped
- 1 lb sweet cherries, pitted and halved
- 3 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1.5oz red wine vinegar
- 1/2 cup olive oil plus 2 tbsp
- 1 tbsp herbes de provence
- salt and pepper to taste
- basil for garnish
Instructions
- 1. Heat a skillet over medium-high heat. Add two tablespoons of olive oil.
- 2. Toss sourdough with garlic and herbes de provence. Fry in oil until browned and toasted.
- 3. Put bread and garlic mixture into a bowl, making sure to scrape out all the oil and herb-y goodness. Add cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, cherries, red wine vinegar and 1/2 cup of olive oil. Cover and let sit for 2 hours.
- 4. In batches, puree the gazpacho until mostly smooth, adding salt and pepper to taste. Pour into bowls, garnish with basil leaves, and serve.
Notes
*This can be made up to a day in advance; just be sure to tightly cover with plastic wrap to avoid discoloration.
© Have Fork, Will Eat
Cherry Salsa
Ingredients
- 1.5lb sweet cherries, pitted
- 1/4 c.red onion, chopped
- 1-2 cloves garlic, chopped
- serrano, diced (up to you--1/2 a pepper for mild, up to 2 for hotter)
- 2 tbsp cilantro, chopped
- juice and zest of 1 lime
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- 1. Put cherries in a food processor and pulse until well-chopped but NOT puréed. Transfer cherries to a bowl.
- 2. Add in red onion, garlic, serrano, cilantro, lime zest, lime juice, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix everything together thoroughly.
- 3. Enjoy!
© Have Fork, Will Eat
[heading style=”2″]But Wait! There’s More![/heading]
How to make cherry syrup, from Karen’s Kitchen
How to dry cherries at home, from the Kitchn
Burgers. Burgers everywhere! Burgers far as the eye can see!
[frame align=”left”]
[/frame]Saturday was a glorious day. We joined together in the holy name of burgers to celebrate the second Evernote cookalong. And oh, what a cookalong it was. Full of juicy, grilled deliciousness, smothered in cheese and various toppings, served on golden buns.
[/frame]Saturday was a glorious day. We joined together in the holy name of burgers to celebrate the second Evernote cookalong. And oh, what a cookalong it was. Full of juicy, grilled deliciousness, smothered in cheese and various toppings, served on golden buns.
Let’s see…the burgers themselves were turkey-feta, and ground brisket and pork. The toppings ranged from the classic cheese, tomato and lettuce to homemade double-dipped onion rings to…poutine. Yes, poutine. Our friends Jeff and Ruth are Canadian and well…they bought fresh cheese curds from Zingermans. Which made Jeff think he could also get gravy and fries. By that, I mean, he realized he could bring things to my house and I would make gravy and fries. Because I would. And I did. And then he topped the fries with the gravy. And topped the gravy with the cheese curds. And topped his burger with the poutine.
He topped his burger with the poutine. Well, I guess Sunday was Canada Day. Continue reading
Strawberry All The Things
A farm near us opened last week for strawberry-picking season. Josh and I, eager to get our berry on, showed up on Wednesday. “We’ll pick a few pounds,” I thought, “No big deal.” I mean, we were only there for an hour, the two of us. No big deal…
Yeah. It’s all fun and games until you get up the scale at the end of your trip and you have to shell out money for the 25 pounds of strawberries you just plucked from the earth.
So we took this story to its natural conclusion and made jam. Lots of jam. 25 half pints of jam…plus a couple quarts of strawberry ice cream…and still have half a flat of strawberries left. Continue reading
The Mango Tango, Pt 3
You know what the best meal ever is? Dessert. But you know what the best meal ever after dessert is? Brunch. And do you know why? Consider the Venn diagram below. Study it closely. Learn its truths.
Today was a grand and glorious celebration in the holy and delicious name of a meal time that occurs between 10am and 2pm. We called it, Brunchapalooza! Continue reading
The Mango Tango, Pt 2
Yesterday was a beautiful day. Clear skies, not warm but pleasant weather overall, got an awesome massive free lunch at Noodles&Co thanks to my friend Chase, and then I went home to my own personal box of sunshine, aka the remaining mangoes I got from Whole Foods. If you remember, they gave me a free box of them to see what I could come up with. The last post was mango ice cream and mango-ancho chili ice cream. Today’s post is still desserty–I can’t help it, mangoes are just so sweet and soft and dessert-y. Today’s post is a mashup of mangoes and my lingering obsession with Italian food, specifically ricotta cheese, after eating at RPM Italian in Chicago last week. Today’s post is a variation of tiramisu. With mango. Mango. Tiramisu.
As Isha would say, “That’s a thing.” Continue reading
The Mango Tango, pt 1
I was in Chicago for a conference last week (hello, good food!) when I got a delightful email from someone at Whole Foods all about mangoes, asking me if I’d like a free case of mangoes to see how many uses I could come up with for them. Umm, YES. YES I WOULD LIKE. You should never turn down a mango. Kumquats, sure, but never a mango.
- Step One: Procure mangoes.
- Step Two: Make (very long) list of tasty foods to make.
- Step Three: Make noms.
- Step Four: Eat noms.
- Step Five: Write blog post
So that’s pretty much what’s been going on here. I made the first dish last night–mango ice cream, and mango-ancho chili ice cream. Why ice cream? Because:
- I got an ice cream maker for Christmas and have since gone a little ice-cream-making-mad.
- It sounded delicious.
- I had all the ingredients for that but none of the other items on my list and was too lazy to go to the store yesterday.
It was really easy to make, too, which was a nice bonus. It also got the most beautiful texture of any ice cream I’ve made thus far, I mean just absolutely gorgeous texture. Pale yellow color, light and airy and silky. The flavor was a very light, sweet, fruity flavor, super refreshing. The kind of thing you really want on a hot day, y’know? To experiment a bit more, I tried a few different add-ins: coconut, chili powder, ancho chili powder.
The pure mango ice cream was my favorite. The mango-coconut combination was Josh’s. The chili powder was ok, but the ancho chili powder was pretty good, giving the ice cream an interesting, unexpected savory flavor. Other mix-ins and toppings could include fresh mint or cilantro, strawberries, cashews, pecans, caramelized banana, candied bacon…really, anything.
Ingredients Instructions
Mango Ice Cream
http://haveforkwilleat.com/2012/04/the-mango-tango-pt-1/© Have Fork, Will Eat
P.S. Put your leftover mango peels in a pot with 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar and boil…voilà! Mango simple syrup. Strain and bottle.
Nobody gives me the raspberry!
I’m ashamed to say that I think that is only the second headline reference to Spaceballs on this blog. I’m sorry about that. I’ll do better.
Anyway, how are you? How’ve you been, Internet? Oh, really? Interesting. I’d love to hear all about that. We should get together and you should tell me about it over a nice glass of raspberry soda. Continue reading
Roasted mushroom spaghetti
I’m a simple person. I don’t want much in life. A warm home, a happy family, an elephant, and a few good, simple meals. This dish basically evolved out of me wanting a tasty, light dinner but also not having gone grocery shopping in a week and not having any meat or anything thawed.
I had a few odds and ends in the fridge, including a tub of cremini mushrooms that I’d originally bought to make this garlic butter roasted mushroom recipe from Smitten Kitchen. Instead of making the recipe as is, I decided to use it as inspiration for this pasta dish. I want all of you health enthusiasts to note that there is no butter in this dish at all. So there.
Oh, but there are two tablespoons of duck fat. Yeah. Continue reading