In my early twenties I used to wait tables at the Old Spaghetti Factory across the street from Pier 70 in downtown Seattle. It’s the type of family friendly restaurant where the energy is always high, flipping tables is a must, and the smell of spaghetti never washes out of your clothes. Most of the entrees are served as a budget-friendly three course meal. Free bread with garlic or plain butter, milk (tea, or coffee), side salad with your choice of dressing, entree, and a scoop of spumoni or vanilla ice cream for dessert. Back when I used to work there, all of this could be yours for under $10.
The most popular salad dressing choice was their creamy pesto dressing. Served on a bed of chopped iceberg lettuce and seasoned croutons, this salad dressing developed a cult-like following. People would come into the restaurant just to buy pints of this stuff! I used to spread it on bread, so good! [click to continue…]
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If someone would have told me a few months ago I would fall in love with eating radishes with a small pat of butter dipped in truffle salt I would have thought they were nuts. But this is exactly what happened when eating at the Pike Brewery in the Pike Place Market. I was there with other food bloggers for a brewery tour and when we sat down to eat, there were whole radishes on a plate with truffle salt and butter. I was confused on how to eat the radishes so I waited to see what others were doing so I could follow their lead. Oh my word… where has this combination been all my life? Seriously.
Over the weekend my husband and I were at a bookstore and while thumbing through cookbooks, I encountered a recipe in one of the Lee Brothers cookbooks for radish butter. I guess I’m the last person to know eating radishes and butter together is common. And just so you know, I am new to truffle salts too. I was introduced to truffle salt earlier this year and have been obsessed with them ever since. [click to continue…]
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Would you believe there are as many teriyaki restaurants as there are Starbucks in Seattle? Well, maybe not as many but certainly there are a ton. In fact, there are five of them within 2 miles of my house compared to three Starbucks. Although teriyaki is Japanese most of the teriyaki restaurants in town are owned by Koreans. Most of them use similar recipes for their teriyaki sauce and you wouldn’t believe how ridiculously easy it is to make at home. I should forewarn any purists out there that this recipe is Korean restaurant style and not an authentic Japanese version. My uncle used to own a deli and we would prepare teriyaki for the lunch hour. This is where I learned to make teriyaki sauce. Its sweet in flavor and is a great finishing sauce for any grilled meat or vegetables. I would also like to disclose right now that this recipe uses garlic powder- I can hear the virtual gasps happening right now as you read this. It is what it is. [click to continue…]
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Today I’m sharing with you one of our favorite ways to eat strawberries. My neighbor and good friend, Alison, first introduced our family to dipping strawberries into sour cream and finishing it off by coating it with brown sugar. Growing up I used to dip strawberries into regular white sugar. Just thinking about it brings back so many wonderful childhood memories. I’ve also dipped strawberries in whipped cream or fruit dip. But never had I heard of dipping strawberries into bowls of sour cream and brown sugar. It seemed like a strange combination but I was still very curious about how it would taste. Would it be too sour? Would it be gross and unpleasant?
To my surprise… it was truly delightful and indulgent! The sweetness of the brown sugar paired with the creaminess of the sour cream was unexpectedly perfect. With just enough brown sugar to enhance the flavor of the strawberries, the slight tanginess of the sour cream added the perfect amount of “pop” to the sweetness of the other two ingredients. [click to continue…]
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When I used to bake and decorate wedding and birthday cakes, I would use different types of frosting depending on who was eating the cake. Most wedding cakes were frosted in egg based recipes such as Italian or French meringue but for children’s cakes or cupcakes I usually frost cakes in American buttercream frosting. Made with powdered sugar, butter, vanilla, and milk, this is a basic, easy recipe for classic vanilla buttercream frosting. This frosting works great for spreading on cakes, cupcakes, and/or for decorating. Some frosting recipes will call for shortening. Although you could easily substitute some of the butter for shortening, your frosting will taste greasy. But if you must have a true bright white frosting or need to stabilize it, shortening and clear vanilla extract flavoring would work fine. I prefer using all butter and occasionally substituting the vanilla extract for other flavors such as almond, coconut, milk, or lemon. The color of the buttercream is slightly off white but the taste of whipped buttery frosting makes it entirely worth it. Also, the frosting can be easily tinted with food paste gel or food coloring.
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