Travelling Lore

Okay, so I might not be the best food and/or dessert photographer, but I promise you that this is one of the best cakes I've ever made!  Even my fiance said it was the best cake he's ever eaten!  I had some leftover cranberries to use so naturally I searched Pinterest for dessert ideas and behold, OMG Chocolate Desserts' recipe for Christmas Cranberry Pound Cake fell into my lap.  She has much better pictures of this scrumptious dessert than I do, so check out her blog for a more photogenic cake. As many of you know, cranberries are tart on their own, but this recipe sweetens them right up!  Also, as usual, I made a few modifications to her original recipe to suit my preferences.  I used all-purpose flour because it's what I had on hand (just make sure to sift it well!); less granulated sugar than was originally called for; and heavy cream and cream cheese instead of mascarpone cheese, which I couldn't immediately find in my local grocery store. ...

While I blog mostly about travel, sometimes I like to mix it up and write about a different topic.  So when I'm not blogging about travel, I blog about food and wine.  Today I bring to you Against All Grain 's amazing recipe for lamb stew with dried plums .  I almost never eat lamb, but this recipe looked too good to pass up and I'm a sucker for stews/soups!  Lamb is more traditionally eaten around Easter, but if you eat lamb for Christmas this recipe would work well for any left over meat. I did make a few modifications to the recipe, though.  The original recipe calls for using a dutch oven, butternut squash, salt, removing the carrots after the first hour of cooking, and making an onion puree.  However, I don't own a dutch oven and I find that using a regular "stew" pot and keeping the lid on keeps the moisture in just as well and has resulted in some quite tasty stews!  I used red potatoes instead of butternut squash because it's what I had on h...

While I don't follow a Whole30 diet, though I do try to eat well, I enjoy the recipes they post on Instagram and draw inspiration from them.  This is the first time I've gotten off my butt to make one of their featured recipes, cranberry sauce, just in time for you to make while you're waiting for that turkey to finish cooking!  It's incredibly easy to take and doesn't really take longer than 10 minutes. Cranberry Sauce Ingredients: 12 oz. whole cranberries 1 cup apple cider 3/4 cup juice from an orange 3 dates, pitted and chopped 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional) Dash of cinnamon and nutmeg (optional) Instructions: Preparing the pie crust: In a pot over medium heat, combine the cranberries, apple cider, and orange juice.  When you hear the cranberries start to pop, turn the heat to medium-low and begin to stir. When most of the cranberries are popped, add the chopped dates and walnuts and a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg.  Let simmer ...

I've been bouncing around a lot this month with a work trip, a short personal vacation, and everything else in between.  Like free food when shopping around for wedding caterers, yum!  But what better time to sit down and get back into the swing of things with a divine pie recipe just in time for Thanksgiving! Naturally this is a Pinterest find.  I was searching around on the internet for the cranberry pie recipe we've made the past few years, but it must only be in a recipe book as I couldn't find it.  However, during the search process I found this gem of a cranberry pecan pie recipe on I should be mopping the floor's blog .  Pumpkin pie will always be my favorite, but pecan pie is a close second and I love how festive the pie looks when adding the cranberries.  Plus they're full of antioxidants which makes this pie healthy, right?! I normally make a wheat flour-based pie crust and I try a different recipe each time since I haven't found the per...

I'm a gigantic pizza fan, so obviously it's one of my favorite foods.  So when I saw this Julia Child's Eggplant Pizza recipe from Kalyn's Kitchen floating around on Pinterest, I thought I'd give it a try.  Why not?  I'd love to learn another way to incorporate eggplant into my cooking, plus it's a healthier alternative to real pizza.  I'm all for carbs, but sometimes I just don't want all of that bread! It takes some time to make simply because you have to wait for the salt to drain some of the water out of the eggplant slices, but overall these eggplant pizzas are extremely easy to make.  See below for my modified recipe! Slice the eggplant into rounds of same thickness.  Coat each side with salt and let them sit on paper towels for 30 minutes while the salt draws out the water from the eggplant. Sautee the finely chopped garlic until fragrant.  Then combine the petite diced tomatoes, dried Italian seasoning, and dried oregano.  Le...

Last week at work we threw a low key gathering for a coworker whose wedding is next month.  The food theme was based entirely on desserts, so I decided to make (for the first time) a blueberry swirl cheesecake.  And I must say I think it turned out splendidly for my first time making it, especially considering I presented it to my coworkers without even getting a chance to try it first for myself! I used  Sally's Baking Addiction 's cheesecake recipe  as the base and then modified it with ingredients I had available at home. Blueberry Swirl Cheesecake Ingredients For the crust: 1.5 cups toasted pecans 3 tbsp brown sugar 3 tbsp butter 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon For the blueberry sauce: 2 tsp cornstarch 1 tbsp warm water 2 cups frozen blueberries 2 tbsp granulated sugar For the filling: 24 oz 1/3 fat cream cheese 1 cup granulated sugar 1 cup nonfat yogurt 2 tsp vanilla extract 3 eggs Instructions ...

Lately I keep seeing this Banana Matcha Smoothie pop up everywhere.  This isn't the best picture of it ever, but if you haven't tried yet and you like green tea, I highly recommend it. For the record, I used an unfrozen banana because I prefer my smoothies to be less viscous, but feel free to use a frozen banana if you want.  I also used Target's Simply Basic (sweetened) Almond Milk and David's Tea's matcha . But what is matcha?  Well, matcha is essentially green tea leaves that have been finely ground into a powder.  Because it's more labor intensive to make matcha than loose leaf tea, matcha is more often than not pricier than the green tea you find in your local grocery store.  It's traditionally made by adding the green tea powder into hot water and then using a bamboo whisk to mix and froth them together.  Yes, it's delicious! Banana Matcha Smoothie Ingredients 1 banana 1 cup almond milk 1 tsp matcha Drizzle of honey (or...

A couple of weeks ago a friend shared a recipe for this Butternut Squash and Beef Stew .  If you follow the paleo diet (which I do not), this recipe is perfect for you.  If you don't follow the paleo diet, this recipe is still perfect for you.  The directions call for the use of a crock pot, but since I don't own one I made stew the old fashioned way: in a regular pot. The first time I made beef stew (using this recipe , more or less) I didn't have the time to let the meat stew for a couple of hours; so while the flavor was great, the meat was still rather tough.  This time I let the whole kit and caboodle stew in a pot for 2.5 hours on low and voila, beautifully tender stew meat! After gathering the ingredients for the stew (see recipe ), lightly brown the stew meat on medium heat. Next add all of the remaining ingredients except for the mushrooms and spinach.  If you're using a crock pot, set it to low and let it cook for six hours.  If ...

Food time!  My basil plants needed a haircut, but I didn't want to waste all of that fresh herb-y goodness, so off to Pinterest I went for a basil-inspired recipe.  I decided to make Basil Quinoa Cakes found on the Greatist .  Mmm, delicious! Although they took a while to make (from prep to finish), it's a super easy recipe.  Just cook the quinoa, combine all of the ingredients, and plop 1/4 cup at a time into a pan.  The recipe calls for bread crumbs, but I took the suggestion of using 2 slices of gluten-free bread and 3 tablespoons of gluten-free flour and it worked great without compromising the taste.  (I don't have celiac disease, but I choose to go gluten-free as often as I conveniently can because it makes me feel less bloated.)  I also chose to fry each side for about 5 minutes instead of 10 because I didn't want my quinoa basil cakes to be super crunchy.  The best part about this recipe?  That it makes about 12 cakes, which c...

This past week and a half has been a whirlwind of travel.  From Denver to D.C. to Jacksonville/Orlando and back to D.C. again.  Whew!  This week was rough after flying back home on 4 hours of sleep and then working a full work week.  There really just aren't enough hours in the day to get everything done! A side note with all that travel: I think I'm done flying with U.S. Airways.  I've only flown two round trips with them, but every time something goes wrong.  This time their bag handlers tore my bag.  I don't even think it tore on the baggage conveyor belt; in fact, it looks like it was slashed with a knife or something.  I could have carried it on, but they had everyone in Zone 4 and higher gate check their bags because there was allegedly no overhead bin space left.  That turned out to be complete crap, by the way; there were a handful of completely empty bins.  Not only that, but in my experience they always board late, take of...