I was so happy when peanut butter powder finally hit the market! It’s gotten popular the past year or so, and I love being able to find it just about anywhere. I first experienced it as peanut flour, which is essentially what it is, sometimes with salt added. (And sometimes sugar, but I avoid the added sugar version.)
I’ve started stirring it into my homemade granola and the results are excellent!
When I worked in a bakery in high school and part of college, we used to make the best berry cream cheese scones. They were more like a soft, sweet drop biscuit than traditional European scones (although I love those, too!).
During the summers, I used to arrive at 5:00 am and bake off the scones. Occasionally, I’d make the dough, too, but it was in gigantic portions that were mixed in an industrial size electric mixer so I never had the chance to translate it into something attainable for a small kitchen.
I miss those scones.
Happy October! My favorite month of the year has arrived once again.
I’m slowly beginning to build my collection of winter squash. I have a long way to go to reach the standards of previous years, but there is still plenty of time.
I decided to break into the season with a batch of muffins. Not just your ordinary winter squash muffins, but double ginger winter squash muffins.
Extra ginger makes all the difference, in my opinion.
Things have been simple around here lately. My next recipe is proof of that.
Life has been busy. Cooking has been light. The focus has been on fruits and vegetables. Especially before we take off to the Big Island in a few weeks where all bets will be off. I can’t visit Hawaii without consuming a fair amount of kalua pork, rice, and mac salad.
So breakfasts like these have been common.
We have a banana problem in the mainland U.S.
They are all the same.
I find that many people are surprised to learn that there is more than one kind of banana. The size, flavor, and texture of the bananas in our supermarkets have engrained in us that there is only one fruit that can be called a banana.
I was always amazed by the many varieties of bananas we had access to in Brazil. The tables at the farmers market were always loaded with short, fat, long, skinny, and just about every other shape and size of banana.
Each had its own flavor, too.
Some were drier and starchier, others soft, and sweet. Very few tasted like the large bananas that we get in the U.S., most often from Central and South America. They grew those were we lived in Brazil, too.
Every now and then, I see a few bunches of a different type of banana in the international section of our supermarkets. Occasionally, I pick up a bunch to see how they compare to the varieties I know from Brazil.
I feel like every time I get my hands on some figs, I want to stuff something with them. The fig and lavender cookies I made last year are a good example. There is just something that about that sweet, jammy interior that is so good when it’s warmed up and discovered inside something unexpected.
Well, it’s fresh fig season in California once again, and I was lucky enough to have several leftover from a photo shoot to afford me the opportunity to experiment with them.
When we travel abroad and find ourselves at a hotel breakfast, one thing I always have my eye out for is muesli.
Up until food bloggers in the U.S. started recreating it as overnight oats, it had never caught on in the States. And it’s still not something you are going to see out much.
In other places, it’s a continental breakfast standard. And despite the fact that I’m usually not huge on soaked, mushy things, it has always been a welcomed find.
I’m not sure what prompted me to make up a batch last week. It was either the hot summer weather, or that I’d made a round of homemade almond milk and wanted to use it up.
Either way, I found myself inspired to make a new muesli creation.
This twist on one of my favorite brunch meals pairs Crab Cakes Benedict with the crisp 2013 Oak Knoll Chardonnay sent to me this month from Cultivar Wine.
We were at least a year into our time living in the Bay Area before I discovered Crab Cakes Benedict. To be honest, I’d probably only started eating regular Eggs Benedict not long before that.
The crab cake version, though? Well, it blew the old standby away. In all honesty, I can’t say that I was a super huge fan of the original anyway. The Canadian bacon on the English muffin didn’t do much for me, nor did the sauce.
But Crab Cakes Benedict is a whole different story.
Just out of curiosity, what is the authentic shape of a scone? All of the scones I’ve eaten in Ireland are round. That’s probably a safe bet. But a lot I eat in the U.S. are wedges or triangles. It’s the shape I make most often, too.
Call me crazy, but every once in a while I like to pull a wild card and make them square or rectangle. In the grand scheme of things, I realize this really doesn’t matter. A good scone is a good scone regardless of shape. This is simply a little sneak peek into the things that roll through my head when I’m in the kitchen – authentic scone shapes.
Speaking of good scones. I have some for you today!
We returned from Kauai this past weekend. It was our first trip to that island and our second to Hawaii. As usual, the travel gave me some inspiration for the kitchen along with a few ingredients that made their way back to California via my suitcase.
Am I the only person who didn’t know about poha? How did I miss this?
I feel like I have a basic knowledge of most cuisines, but as much as I enjoy Indian cuisine, poha completely slipped passed my radar. I first discovered it a little while back through Liana Krissoff’s Vegetarian for a New Generation. Her book contains a poha recipe and I was hooked immediately.
Poha is a flattened white rice and when combined with spices, veggies, and eggs it’s like an Indian-inspired fried rice! There is something about it that I enjoy so much more than regular rice. Internet rumor has it that it’s easier to digest as well. But don’t take my word for that. I’ve just seen it around the web.
