Today’s post marks number 1,500. Fifteen hundred times that I’ve made an entry here!

It would seem appropriate to celebrate such a feat with a cake, cupcakes, or some sort of dessert. But no, instead we shall celebrate with a slow cooker chicken recipe. Not as exciting, but easier and healthier too.

You can use either frozen or raw chicken breasts for this recipe. I used frozen, as you’ll be able to see in the photos to follow.

Slow Cooker Honey-Soy Chicken

4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup honey
3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 tablespoon Sriracha
2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 cup cold water
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
2 green onions, sliced on the diagonal

Cooked quinoa or brown rice
Lettuce leaves

Place the chicken in a slow cooker and season with salt and pepper.

In a medium bowl, combine the soy sauce, honey, vinegar, tomato paste, garlic, Sriracha, sesame oil, and onion powder.

Pour over chicken and cook on LOW for 3 hours if using raw chicken and for 4 hours if using frozen chicken.

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… back in the day of newspapers. Remember what those were? When every wedding was “announced” … our kids and grandkids won’t know what that’s like.

Happy Anniversary, David. xoxo

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I found this cake on Pinterest. I made it for the first class of my three-week series of cooking classes at Les Gourmettes. It was a brunch menu and the cake was a hit.

The recipe makes one cake. In some of the photos, there are two cakes since I needed to make two for the class.

Cinnamon Roll Cake

Cake
2 ¾ cups flour, divided
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 package yeast
1/4 cup milk
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup cold tap water
1 egg, room temperature
Filling
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1 ½  tablespoons ground cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar
Vanilla Maple Glaze
1 ½ cups powdered sugar
1 tablespoon milk
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cake: Place 2 ¼ cups of the flour, sugar, salt, and yeast in the bowl of a standing mixer and blend together until combined.

Heat the milk and butter together in the microwave until the butter is melted. Add the cold water and test the mixture to be sure it is not too hot but just warm to touch, test on your wrist as you would a baby bottle.  Stir the butter mixture into the flour mixture.  Add the egg and just enough of the remaining 1/2 cup of flour to make a soft dough. The dough will be ready when it gently pulls away from the side of the bowl and has an elastic consistency.  On a clean surface that is just lightly dusted with flour, knead the dough for about 3 minutes.

Form a ball and place in a lightly greased bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and let rise for 30 minutes.

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Happy May Day

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Happy Birthday, Sloane!

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I’ve finished sharing all my recipes from the Spanish Dinner Party and the menu is now listed on the “Complete Recipe Index” – yet I have one more important tip to share with you.

At the Spanish Dinner Party, I served my Rojo Sangria from this glass beverage server.

Problem was, that the fruit tended to clog the spout.

We solved this problem by providing a spoon that could be put down in the jar and pushed aside the fruit.

Of course, the lid had to be removed to do so. Additionally, the weather that evening was very lovely, which lead to our tendency to leave the door open, as we were dining al fresco

This combination leads to problem number two.

Fruit Flies!

When I entered the kitchen, while clearing the table, I discovered a fruit fly infestation in the open sangria jar! It was disgusting!

I disposed of the remaining sangria, but much to my dismay, a majority of the fruit flies remained.

As a result, here is my tip on how to quickly and efficiently get rid of fruit flies in your home.

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By far, our favorite tapas while visiting Barcelona were jamón ibérico and patatas bravas. If you’re interested, you can read more about jamón ibérico HERE.

And if you happen to have $630 to spare, you can purchase a whole bone-in jamón ibérico de bellota (the highest quality of jamón ibérico) HERE. If you go to that extravagance, I hope and pray that you’ll invite me over!

When we had our Spanish party over a week ago, we did not have jamón ibérico. I could not find it, so we had to settle with prosciutto. Prosciutto is delicious in its own right, but a sorry substitute for the fabulously famous Spanish ham.

Luckily, we did not have to settle when it came to the patatas bravas (brave potatoes) – they were just as good as those we enjoyed in Spain. What makes them so tasty and crispy is the double-frying of the potatoes along with the spiciness of the pimentón sauce.

You’ll use two varieties of pimentón; smoked sweet and smoked hot. Both are easy to find and well priced at Home Goods or Amazon.

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In my final post of 2012, I shared a New Year’s Eve tablescape and showed you some plates that I longed for.

Among them was this set of four Ralph Lauren clock face plates that were from a 2010 Lauren line.

I’ve now learned that the pattern of the plates is Pocketwatch.

On Wednesday of this week, I thought I spotted the plates in a photo I saw on the Sweet Salvage Facebook page for their upcoming sale.

Posted only a few images later there was a close-up shot. It’s them!

Yesterday as the sale began and as soon as Peggy, Sheila, and I got through the doors, we all headed for the booth with the orange scarf on the mannequin. Peggy got there first and was snagging up the plates for me! Thanks, girlfriend!

I was a little worried about what the price would be. I’d searched online the day before we arrived to shop – just so I’d have an idea of what price to expect.  I learned that the original retail price in 2010 was $27 each!

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If you’re anything like me, you have a variety of open olive jars in your refrigerator. And if so, then this recipe is for you!

I had partial jars of stuffed olives, pitted olives, black olives, green olives, and olives with the pits still inside. Any and all of those can be used here.

So clean out your fridge and make a great addition to a tapas bar at the same time.

Tapas Bar Olives

16 ounces of a variety of olives
3 long slices of orange peel
4 fresh bay leaves
1 small hot red pepper, cut into thin circles
Olive oil

Place a third of the olives in a large jar with a tight-fitting lid. Add an orange peel strip, a bay leaf, and a couple of pepper slices to the olives.

Top with another third of the olives, another bay leaf, and a few more pepper slices.

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This easy and super pop-pop-popular tapa has only three ingredients and takes only a couple of minutes to throw together.

Sometimes the Spanish chorizo can be difficult to find. I found it at Cost Plus World Market.

Chorizo-Filled Dates Wrapped in Bacon

Spanish chorizo sausage, casing removed
14 Medjool dates, pitted
7 slices thick-cut bacon, halved crosswise

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.

Make an incision on one side of each date and remove the pit. Discard the pits and set aside the pitted dates.

Cut the chorizo sausage into 14 little sticks about twice the size of the pits you removed.

Tuck a chorizo stick into each date and pinch the dates closed. Wrap a half strip of bacon around each date and secure with a toothpick.

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