Food: Heart-shaped Food

Today for my food post, I won't be sharing food porn like I usually am fond of doing. No, today I'd like to share something a little bit different and it's this interesting potato in the picture above.

I found this cute little potato nestled in amongst the other 'normal' potatoes last year and since I love documenting things I just had to snap a picture of it. I mean, how many times do you go to make something to eat and you find heart-shaped food? It made my day and looking at it now nearly a year later it still makes me smile!

Have you ever come across any heart-shaped food or unusually shaped foods? Have you seen a face staring back at you when you're about to dig in? LOL. If you have, we'd love to hear your story. Please leave us a comment and tell us about it.

Until next time...

Food: Croissants

Food Porn for today..... CROISSANTS!!! 

I love croissants! I have them on occasion and every time it's a beautiful experience.

Food - Calamari & Peppered Steak Salad

I'm here once again with some lovely food porn! This time it's not just one dish....today we've got TWO!!! This was a truly delicious lunch that I had in London last week. It was so delicious that the taste memory is still very much alive! Above is the calamari that I had as a starter and below is the peppered steak salad that I had as a main dish. Each dish was superb.

The calamari was fried, but it was as light as a feather and it wasn't rubbery at all. The peppered steak salad was so fresh and delicious! The steak was seasoned just right....with just the right peppery kick. I had this wonderful lunch at a place called Sophie's in Covent Garden. All that I have to say is YUM!!!!!

Until next time...

Food: Cauliflower Cheese and Bacon at The Glasshouse Inn, May Hill, Gloucestershire - Val

Hello there, and welcome back to 'Food' at Labyrinthus XXI.

It was my birthday recently, and to celebrate, we decided to eat out somewhere new, as we tend to keep going back to the same old tried and tested places.  Well, that gets boring, doesn't it?  So, we spent a while trawling the internet and reading reviews, and found a gorgeous old pub in glorious countryside just west of Gloucester (sorry about all the adjectives, but it was lovely!).  We went last Saturday evening and arrived in the nick of time, nabbing the last free table, which was really lucky as people literally started piling in - I guess it's quite a popular pub!

Food - Spinach & Cheese Ravioli

 

 

Once again it's my turn to share another luscious bit of food porn. As you can see, I love taking pics of food ;-)  Anyway, I had this in Bath, England a while back, but the memory of how good it was is still very strong in my mind. It's spinach and cheese ravioli, garnished with cheese and a little bit of salad and gloriously toasted bread! Mmmmmmm!!!!!! I had this in a department store cafeteria of all places, but sometimes the Universe surprises you and you get something special in a place or a way that you least expect it. And to top it off it was really reasonably priced so I was a happy woman!

 

Until next time...



Food - Double Chocolate Muffin

 

 

 

A bit of deliciousness to share today...a double chocolate muffin. First of all, I didn't bake this myself, but I really enjoyed it wholeheartedly! It was so rich that I ate it with a spoon. I think that I'm going to have to find my own recipe and make some of these. If I do I'll share the result here.

 

Until then, I'll just salivate over this picture ;-)

 

Have a great day! 

Food: Food Porn - Kiwi

 

 

Today my food post is about a food that's healthy as opposed to my previous food porn post. I believe in enjoying a little bit of this and a little bit of that. These are kiwifruit and they're one of my favourite things to eat. They're tangy and sweet at the same time. I'm sure that many of you have already tried them, but if you haven't, please give them a try and tell me what you think. They are also just gorgeous to look at when they're sliced like this. Before they're peeled they look like furry little balls, but they're the ultimate in not judging a book by it's cover ;-)

Food: Salivating Over Food Pics

Today I wanted to share a food porn pic. I love salivating over pictures of food. I know...I'm greedy, but actually there are many food porn lovers out there. For those of you who don't know what food porn is, here's a semi-official definition from Wikipedia:

'Food porn is a glamorized spectacular visual presentation of cooking or eating in advertisements, infomercials, cooking shows or other visual media; foods boasting a high fat and caloric content, exotic dishes that arouse a desire to eat or the glorification of food. Food porn often takes the form of food photography and styling that presents food provocatively, in a similar way to glamour photography.' (from Wikipedia)

There are whole blogs and websites like Food Porn Daily that are just devoted to this subject so I'm not alone in my love of this little hobby ;-)

Recipe: Wing It Spicy Pasta

Like many cooks, I have a tendency to wing it and not really measure the ingredients when I'm cooking. I just let my instincts take over and I create dishes according to my taste buds. I've thought about sharing my recipes like this before, but I hesitated because I wasn't able to give precise measurements. However, I realized that it's okay if I don't have precise measurements because part of cooking is creativity and what's more creative than making up a dish as you go along  ;-)

So here's my recipe:

Ingredients (to your own taste):

• roughly a tablespoon of Cajun seasoning
• roughly a tablespoon of oregano
• 2 vegetable stock cubes
• roughly a half teaspoon of flat leaf parsley
• roughly a teaspoon of smoked paprika
• a splash of Worcestershire sauce
• a splash of balsamic vinegar
• 1 large onion (chopped)
• about 8 medium sized mushrooms (chopped)
• roughly 4 ounces of water
• teaspoon of olive oil
• half teaspoon of butter
• spaghetti (amount depending upon how many you're serving)

Cooking time: about 25 minutes

Prep time: Just enough time to chop your mushrooms and onions

 

Add your olive oil and butter to your frying pan, letting the butter melt down. Next add your chopped onions and let them cook down until they're close to being translucent and then add your chopped mushrooms. Let the onions and mushrooms mingle together for a bit.

Recipe: Mushroom and Bread Soup with Parsley

Today I'd like to share a recipe for a soup that I made recently. You know how it is when you've run out of things to make...you start searching for inspiration. Well it was a day such as this when I remembered that I had a cook book with nothing but soup recipes in it. Since we're in the depths of winter, a bowl of hot soup is always welcome. So I thumbed through and found one soup recipe in particular that didn't take too many ingredients. It looked simple enough so I gave it a go.

It's called mushroom and bread soup with parsley. It's thickened with bread and it's a rich mushroom soup that's very satisfying. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

75g /3oz /6 tablespoons of unsalted butter
900g/ 2 pounds of portobello mushrooms, sliced
2 onions, roughly chopped
600ml/ 1 pint/ 2 and a half cups milk
8 slices of white bread
60ml/ 4 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
300ml/ half pint/ 1 and a quarter cups double (heavy) cream
salt and black pepper

Food: Tex-Mex Food

Recently I celebrated my birthday and I went out to dinner on that evening and it was a glorious time! There's nothing like breaking bread with those you love and it's especially wonderful when it's in celebration of something that is happening in your life.

I love going out to dinner on occasion and on my birthday we went to one of my favorite places to eat. It's a place called Chiquito which specializes in Tex-Mex food which is a hybrid of American and Mexican tastes. I'm a big fan of this type of food, so when I discovered this restaurant it was like getting a taste of back home. So when I was asked where I wanted to go for my birthday there was no question of where I wanted to go :-)

It was so very hard to decide what I wanted to eat because EVERYTHING looked amazing on the menu! The smells coming from the kitchen were out of this world and it just made the decision even harder. They have an opening to the kitchen where they pass out the dishes to the waiters and all of that delicious aroma just wafts out into the dining area. I'm sure this is by design. It's a great idea because it gives you a full sensory experience.

I finally decided on having the nachos as a starter. Here's a pic.

The nachos were slightly toasted and were served with dollops of salsa, sour cream, and guacamole with a sprinkling of cheese. It was perfect!

For my main course I had the barbecue chicken fajitas. They were delicious too! The strips of barbecue chicken are brought to the table resting on a bed of onions and peppers and it's served on a griddle pan which is piping hot and still smoking when it gets to the table. Then you are served tortillas and toppings to add as you build your own fajitas.

Here's a pic of the barbecue chicken when it's served on the griddle pan.

This was the best dinner that I've had in a long time and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The whole experience made a wonderful birthday even better. I can't wait to go there again, but in the meantime I might try to make my own version of the fajitas. If I do give it a go, I'll share my result here in one of my future food/recipe posts.

Do you like to replicate restaurant foods at home? What have you made and what was the result? Please share your experiences in the comment section. We'd love to hear from you!

Food: Black-eyed Peas and Greens

Today is our food post day...we'll either share a recipe or some thoughts about a dish we like or what's known these days as food porn. Well today I'd like to share a dish that I like. Actually it's two things that I have together at least once a year.

I'm originally from Georgia, in the southeastern United States, and I come from a tradition where people have black-eyed peas and collard greens to eat on New Year's Day. The tradition is that eating the peas brings luck and the greens bring money in the fresh new year. It's just a tradition and I don't think that anyone thinks that these foods hold magic, but it's kind of one of those things where you say...it couldn't hurt to give it a go. And it's a nice tradition.

I was able to find black-eyed peas but I'm not able to find collard greens where I live here, so I usually get kale or spring greens which are cousins to collard greens anyway so it all works fine.

Here is a picture of the spring greens before I cooked them. It's a good idea to give a them a good rinse before you cook them.

And here's a picture of them after they're cooked. I seasoned them with salt, pepper, smoked paprika, and a splash each of balsamic vinegar and Worcestershire sauce. Then I just let them cook down.

The black-eyed peas were very quick. I took the quick route and just microwaved them and added salt, pepper, smoked paprika, and onions. Usually I would cook them up on the stove top, but I was short on time, so I took the microwave short cut. Here's a picture of the finished dish.

I served these with a medallion steak and it was delicious. It was a delicious way to start off the brand new year!

I wish everyone lots of good fortune in 2014!