Batter Licker

I didn’t have enough sad, brown (black??), dead, squishy bananas to make banana bread. ::sigh:: I only had one limp little fella laying around, filling my fridge with his sickly sweet scent. He had to go, pronto.

So I blended him to smithereens. (I get a little violent about soggy old bananas sometimes, especially when they taunt me with their so-totally-grossness while I’m making a concerted effort not to waste “food” – if bananas that far gone even still qualify as edible.)

Continue reading peanut butter, banana, and almond milk shake

Sometimes, in my kitchen, at our friends’ home using their grill, and in the food blogging world, things just don’t go as planned. Recipes go horribly awry; pictures turn out blurry; fluorescent lighting makes food appear greenish, blueish or just plain blah.

Or the incredibly simple but WOW shrimp recipe I’ve loved and made for years – with Beautiful Grill Marks Every Single Time – ends up having Zero Grill Marks, Whatsoever the one time I finally remembered to take photographs.

Thankfully, despite a few snafus during the cooking process, the shrimp still tasted pretty freakin’ great.

Snafus?? Well, let’s just say that, if a man walking around in an Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat offers to grill the shrimp you’ve so carefully and beautifully marinated …
Continue reading grilled herbed shrimp

Unless it’s boiled to death, I absolutely adore cabbage. The same adoration does not apply equally to Brussels sprouts.

Although, like bananas, I keep trying to like them; I just haven’t had much success. Then I experienced a duck fat fried epiphany at Perbacco. The sprouts had been cooked until tender on the inside and fried to crisp, browned perfection. I couldn’t get enough of them.

So when I saw some Brussels sprouts on sale, I recalled the bacon fat I had lingering in my freezer and thought I’d try something similar – but much cheaper than an evening at Perbacco.

A couple tablespoons of bacon fat, a few pinches of salt and pepper, a sprinkling of Parmesan, and about 7 minutes later, these pan-fried Brussels sprouts came together as a decadent, quick, and easy little side dish for a date-night-at-home dinner with Jay.
Continue reading bacon fat pan-fried brussels sprouts

Too late for latkes now that Chanukah is about a month behind us? Nonsense! That would be like saying it’s too late for baked potatoes – or soup.

Seeing as frigid, rainy winter weather is just starting to renew itself after a dry heat spell here in San Francisco, I can’t believe any of those could possibly be out of season just yet.

New Year resolution-makers might huff and puff a bit about the pan-fried in oil factor. But if the oil is hot enough, these veggie-laden pancakes will not absorb ridiculous amounts of oil. Instead, they’ll do exactly what makes them so irresistible:
Continue reading zucchini, onion and potato latkes with chive sour cream

On October 14, 2011 …

… Jay and I prepared to exchange rings and formalize what we had already felt in our hearts since moving to San Francisco together in 2005.

… we arrived at the Julia Morgan Ballroom quite early, and spent a few hours snooping around while everything got set up; ordering two insanely large platters of Mediterranean salads, hummus, falafel, gyros, and shawarma wraps for friends and family who intended to stop by; running around downtown San Francisco in search of pita bread once we realized it had been omitted from our order by mistake; and spending a wonderfully private lunchtime together.

… I kicked Jay out once my mom arrived with my dress in tow, and sent him back to his parents and grandmother at the Omni Hotel across the street.

… the scene was set with flickering candlelight, plush couches, roaring fireplaces, and a colorful assortment of fall elements, ranging from purple and green artichokes to fiery calla lilies to Brussels sprouts, gourds, squashes, chili peppers, pumpkins, and berries.

Yes, those are artichokes in my bouquet; it was utterly fabulous.
Continue reading we do