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Sunday
May052013

GCC: Cream Asparagus Tarragon Soup and Poach Egg

This week is the first week of another Gutsy Cook line up.  The month of June belongs to Raymond from Your Just Desserts and boy did he bring it with his choices this month – I cannot wait to cook it up in the next 4 weeks.

I love, love asparagus, its actually one of my favorite vegetables and my preferred way to eat them is cooked until crisp-tender then tossed in olive oil, sprinkle with parmesan cheese and topped with a poach egg.

If that is not comfort food at its best, I don’t know what is.

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Thursday
May022013

Extraordinary Cakes: Lemon Praline Torte

While I love cooking savory food, my passion really is baking.  Through the years, without even striving for it, I have become the “baker” of the family.  We need a birthday cake? Call Monica.  A fancy dessert needed? Call Monica.

Yes, sweet nothings are my thing. (Psst.. check the blog tittle)

But, even thought I felt comfortable baking, I knew I was not a GREAT baker.  There were tons of things out there in the baking worlds that were so unknown to me – pies, anything with yeast, techniques, certain flavor combinations – I was never gutsy enough to try them. I had gotten comfortable in my regular dessert repertoire.

Until I started this blog and saw what was out there – possibilities.  And the baking guru inside of me woke up and tapped me in the shoulder and told me “Dude, you need to feed me more baking challenges”.

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Monday
Apr292013

Gutsy Cook May Recipe Line Up is posted

May’s Gutsy Cook Recipe Line-up is is posted and ready to be cooked.

This month feature Gutsy Cook is Raymond from Your Just Desserts and he is really giving us some amazing options.

I think he went a bit retro on us with his cookbooks choices and I’m pretty exited to get my kitchen ready for them.  We got a souffle in there and I’m scare of those things, so it will be interesting to see what how that turns out. 

Monday
Apr222013

Yogurt and Blueberries Paletas - Guest Post!

 

You are probably wondering how the picture above of Yogurt and Blueberries Paletas (Ice Pops) have anything to do with this.

Patience my readers…

You know what the best thing about food blogging is? Joining a community that will accept you with open arms. I have meet so many awesome bloggers in the 3 years that I started Sweetbites, and their continue support and inspiration is what keeps me putting time in the small kitchen of mine.  And you, my readers are the gas that keeps me going by posting all of those tasty treats that come out of that kitchen.  Win-win guys!

Wait.. I’m getting side track.. back to the ice pops.

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Thursday
Apr182013

GCC: Greek Yogurt Cake

They say that the simple things in life are the most extraordinary.  Its true, we take it for granted.  Humans are the ones that complicated things.

In this case, this recipe cannot be overthought, or over complicated.  It is what it is.

A fast batter to put together with simple ingredients that I bet, are sitting in your pantry/refrigerator right now. And the end results is a great snacking cake.

And I’m not taking about twinkies here.

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Sunday
Apr142013

GCC: Steak Pizzaiola

This weeks Gutsy Cook choice used chuck steak as the star of this dish, and then braise it under this rich spicy tomato sauce.  The results were simply magical in our house.  At the end of a 2-hour oven stay, the meat was pull apart tender, infused with this rich taste of tomatoes with a kick of spice.  What could be better than that for a lazy weekend meal? Nothing, it hit the right spot with our taste buds.

We love the idea of making a big bowl of rigatoni to go along with this; instead we opted to make some mashed potatoes to soak up that sauce after we found out our pantry was low on pasta and no rigatoni option to be found.

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Wednesday
Apr102013

Mandocas - Sweet Corn Fritters

When I was 8 years old my mother sent my sister and I to live with our paternal grandparents.  She was coming to the states to prepare our arrival and she decided that our grandparents should spend some time with us before we moved to the United States.

My grandparents lived in the state of Zulia, which is located in the northwest of Venezuela, around the Marcaibo Lake.  This lake is the largest water body of its kind in Latin America and its basin covers one of the largest oil and gas reserves in the Western Hemisphere.

Maracaibo is the state capital and it has the second (Caracas being the first) largest population among Venezuela states.  Like any country, each state is known for their own individual personality. Maracuchos (the population of Maracaibo) as they are referred, are loud, talk fast and everyone cuss like sailors – and I mean everyone, toddlers to gradmas.

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Tuesday
Apr092013

Wedding Food

Can you believe that that is the only photo that I have of the food that was served at our wedding? Yep, I was too busy smiling, laughing, dancing, oh yeah, keeping an eye on my new husband that was busting it on the floor with the little man (not so little anymore) and through all that totally forgot to tell my photographers to take some shot of the food.

So you guys will have to imagine the Tomato Shooters with Bianco Panini - crispy focaccia grilled panini filled wtih mozzarella, sweet onion, fresh tomatoes, arugula, Gorgonzola and served on top of a tomato-bail soup shooter.  I think I had like 5 of those.  The other hit was the Baby Artichoke hearts topped wtih goat cheese, olive tapenade, and sun-dried tomatoes (I totally going to re-created these in the future).  For Tom we had the Mini-Pulled Pork Slider with cilantro lime mayo, monterey jack and sliced avocado on a roll, served wtih crispy sweet potato fries.  For me we went the Maryland Crab Cake tower seared and served wtih a cajun remoulade, the traditional deviled eggs and the southwestern shrimp with tangy lime and avocado dip.

So yes, apologies, you will need to close your eyes and imagine all of it.

You are wondering about the wedding cake?  Don’t need to imagine that one.. because there is a picture of that one… over at Sweetlife (bonus, more pictures of the whole affair too!)

I could tell you that it was a yum! cake - one layer was a rum soaked pound cake with vanilla pastry cream and fresh strawberries the other was boston cream pie - vanilla custard with chocolate and oh yeah, more of that rum soaked pound cake.

Those shot glassed on top - were the Key Lime Luxury with crushed graham crackers, red velvet and cream cheese icing.  By the time we got to them they were gone!

I do have to thank my awesome catering company Puff n’ Stuff.  They along with the other vendors rocked it.

Now I have to just remember those Baby Artichoke in order to duplicate them.

Sunday
Apr072013

GCC: Baked Chicken with Honey-Whole Grain Mustard Glaze

I’m so happy that we started up the Gutsy Cook Club – actually if I’m honest Tom is more excited than anyone, since he now gets to eat “real” food.  I have to say for the last couple of months we have eaten crap.  Ok, maybe that is a bit extreme, we eat food, but nothing new, mostly dishes that were fast and have been posted on the blog before and frankly Tom got use to having something new every weekend when I would put my Gutsy Cook hat on, when I told him we were back and and that this weekend we were having a new recipe, he shouted “YES!, glad you are back!”.

If that is not a hint, I don’t know what is.

Click to read more ...

Friday
Apr052013

Gutsy Cook April Recipe line up is posted

And we start again - new cooks, new format and new recipes!  

April’s Gutsy Cook Recipe line up is posted and ready to be cooked.

Want to join us?

Once a week we cook a recipe from the Gutsy Cook choosen cookbook/magazine recipe.

Since this is my month, we are cooking from 2 favorite cookbooks of mine - MAD Hungry and MAD Hungry Cravings from Lucinda Scala Quinn.  You guys remember these luscious Braised Short Ribs

They have become our go to short rib recipe.

We are big fans of Mrs. Scala Quinn around the M+P house.  So I have high hopes for the choosen recipes, my kitchen will be hopping the next 4 weeks.