Happy Canada Day! We love our neighbors to the north, and I am always up for an excuse to celebrate another holiday, so I made a batch of Nanaimo bars in honor of this day. 🙂 Nanaimo bars are typically a rich, buttery, and sugary dessert. If you aren’t familiar with the confection, here is […]
This month, I am thoroughly enjoying a cozy mystery that is set in a Charleston, South Carolina tearoom entitled Steeped in Evil. It is such a descriptive book and the characters are so vividly written, that I feel like I am taking a virtual vacation to Charleston! When I find an absorbing book like this, […]
Happy summer! It is officially here! The weather in Seattle feels a little tropical in the summertime, so I decided to make my tropical banana coconut bread recipe into muffins to celebrate the season. 🙂 Dividing the batter into individual muffin portions allowed me to use whole-wheat pastry flour instead of all-purpose flour. (I tried […]
Greetings from the train between Portland and Seattle! Isn’t technology amazing, so I can write about a recipe while going 75 miles an hour? 🙂 When I want to serve something extra healthy, (since swimsuit season is here!), I go back to this recipe again and again. It is from a raw vegan chef named […]
Happy Dos de Junio! OK, it isn’t really a Mexican holiday today. But it is a gorgeous Monday, the sun is shining, and I think there is a reason to celebrate every day. 🙂 I didn’t make a Mexican dish this year for Cinco de Mayo, so I made up for that today. This recipe […]
Almost every Mother’s Day weekend, my mom and I get together for a girls’ weekend to celebrate! We love to spend the time together doing our favorite things like shopping, exploring wineries, and staying up late chatting. 🙂 Given that I am less of a morning person than she is, I made sure she had […]
It was about 85 degrees in Seattle today, which felt like a Hawaiian breeze to me! It is only supposed to last one day, and then go back to our usual Northwest weather. Today also happens to be Lei Day in Hawaii, so the unseasonably warm weather was perfect for a little Hawaiian inspired celebration […]
We enjoyed a simple and elegant Easter dinner at home this year. I tried three recipes that were inspired by Sophie Dahl’s cookbook entitled Very Fond of Food: A Year in Recipes. She’s a British cook I recently discovered, and I like her style. 🙂 She has two cookbooks, and she also had a little […]
Happy Easter! I made a batch of simple yellow cupcakes to celebrate the season. These cakes would be great with any kind of frosting or decoration on top. For example, here’s an idea to try for next year! Ha! They are a good base cupcake, and then you can get creative from there. 🙂 I […]
Spring is finally here! To celebrate the new season, I made a recipe for parsley cupcakes. It is one of the most interesting recipes I’ve come across in a long time, and I’m glad I tried it. 🙂 They have a unique herb flavor, and they are intensely green without the use of any food […]
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I’m not even a wee bit Irish, but I always have fun celebrating this holiday. We really enjoyed the Irish soda bread muffins I made last year, so this year I decided to try another spin on the same idea. I baked Irish soda bread biscuits. 🙂 I went an extra […]
Happy White Day! Last month, as I was looking through recipes for our Japanese Valentine’s Day dinner, I also looked at how people in Japan celebrate Valentine’s Day. Through that research, I stumbled upon a Japanese holiday called White Day. I learned that in Japan, women typically give men chocolates on Valentine’s Day rather than […]
Happy Mardi Gras! I couldn’t think of anything better to celebrate the holiday than king cake. I love the story and history surrounding the cake. In Louisiana, they decorate the top with the colors of Mardi Gras – purple, yellow, and green. They also hide a small plastic baby or a trinket inside. I made […]
As the winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia are coming to a close, I wanted to try a Russian recipe to celebrate the occasion! I made blini with smoked salmon. 🙂 I used Ina Garten’s recipe as the base, but I made it a little healthier. I substituted the butter with Earth Balance, and used much […]
Rob and I celebrated Valentine’s Day and our engagement anniversary all weekend, culminating with a fancy sushi dinner! I decided to try making miso soup from scratch to go with the dinner, since it is almost always served at Japanese sushi restaurants. I really had no idea how it was made or what went into […]
The leftover crab cakes make a really lovely breakfast in the morning. Just toast a whole-wheat English muffin for the base, place a reheated crab cake on top of that, and finish it off with a poached egg on top. Rob likes to put a little crispy prosciutto on his, as well. We are celebrating […]
Happy Valentine’s Day! We enjoyed a low key, but special dinner tonight. Since I worked later in the evening, we just made a couple of our favorite dishes that are easy to put together. My Valentine requested his favorite crab cakes, which I wrote about a few years ago. They always feel like a special […]
Today is a big day in Seattle! Blue and green decorations adorn the city and suburbs, and everyone seems to be buzzing with excitement over the game today. It’s Super Bowl Sunday, and my home team made it to the finals! I found these super cute little football popcorn cones on a website called Snap! […]
We had a little culinary adventure this year in honor of the Lunar New Year in Vietnam (Tết). Rob and I love Vietnamese food, and we often go out for it in the International District. I also attended a Tết festival in Seattle Center this year where they had dragon dancers, firecrackers, and a chef […]
We have a little community of squirrels in our backyard that are very amusing to watch! One in particular is a brave little guy, and he will come right up to our feet and look up at us. SO adorable! (Perhaps keeping a stash of nuts for him has a little something to do with […]