For 22 years we have adhered to a strict rule in our house at this time of year. No holiday decorations are allowed on December 1st. That means Thanksgiving stuff needs to be taken down and put away and the Christmas stuff must be left unbothered until at least December 2nd. Hey, that’s today! The reason for the rule is simple – December 1st is Marissa’s birthday and that day needs to be all about her – not about the two major holidays that surround her special day.  Over the years, the rule has been slightly modified, and Christmas lights on the outside of the house became permitted. And this year, the rule wasn’t so much modified as actually broken – just a little! I have a TV shoot here this morning and it is going to feature me and my kitchen Christmas tree. Hence, the rule was broken when I put up that little tree yesterday – sorry baby girl, we’ll go back to being rule sticklers next year!

[Read more →]

Picture by Marissa, read the info at the bottom of the post!

Not that kind of housekeeping! I’m not Martha Stewart, I don’t give a darn how you fold your sheets and I certainly hope you do NOT iron them! No, I’m talking about some minor “blog housekeeping” – Firstly, thank you to each and every one of you who have already commented in the last 24 hours, trying to help me reach my goal of 1027 comments by December 31, 2010. We are already up to 994 – fabulous! And somehow, by some wonderful miracle, the comments actually outweighed the blog spam today!

Secondly, for those of you who may have missed it or who live out of the Phoenix area, here is THE LINK to the S’Mores Party clip from yesterday’s Valley Dish. Great fun, too bad we were missing Connor, although I’m sure he was staying warm up in beautiful Flagstaff that Friday night. OK, housekeeping finished – on to today’s recipe.

[Read more →]

Everyone should set goals for themselves. Most people do so at the beginning of a new year. Today I am setting a goal for my blog. It is a short-term goal that is to be accomplished by the end of this year, and I need YOUR help to achieve it!

[Read more →]

Before I get to today’s recipe I want to send out birthday wishes to a very special woman in my life. Happy Birthday to my mother-in-law, Pat Hopkins, in Rockton, Illinois. Happily, all four of us flew to Illinois last weekend and spent fun times with Mom at Katie and Eddie’s wedding. Happy Birthday, Mom, we’re looking forward to your visit in February. I love you! xoxo

What in the world would possess a person to even think of making homemade marshmallows? What or who could make me consider doing it? Tram Mai, that’s who! Tram called a couple of weeks ago and asked if I’d like to do a story for Valley Dish about a S’Mores Party. Sure, sounds fun – gourmet S’mores – a party – cool entertaining idea- I’m all in! Immediately I start thinking of all the wonderful alternatives to plain old milk chocolate squares and graham crackers. How to really “kick it up a notch”, as Emeril would say. The filling alternatives are the easy part, then I wonder how to do something different with the real star of the show – the marshmallow. OK, honestly, I have made homemade marshmallows once before; in a cooking class with my summer children’s series, years ago. But those were still plain vanilla marshmallows, I needed something more than that. So I did my usual research – meaning, I “googled” it – and found a chocolate-flavored marshmallow recipe. Cool! The chocolate marshmallow recipe provided here is adapted from a site called GlobalGourmet.com.  Sadly that site is no longer around, you may read about it and find their 10 most influential articles HERE.

I then went a step further and decided that we needed a third flavor, so I created up a raspberry version too. (that recipe is just below the chocolate version… so keep scrolling). Tomorrow I will post all the gourmet S’mores recipes I created and pictures from our shoot with the entire pretty spread. 

Before you scroll down to the actual recipe, let me preface it by saying, “Please don’t be intimidated by the massive length of the recipe!” There are only 9 ingredients… and one is water; some of the others are non-intimidating salt, vanilla, sugar, etc. It’s just a bunch of really long descriptions, explanations, and directions, plus more than a dozen photos to help you visualize it all. The process itself is not hard! Really! Read through the whole thing and you’ll see what I mean. Because now that I’ve made and tasted and drooled over these homemade marshmallows, I am wondering what took me so long to make homemade marshmallows again. Seriously!

[Read more →]

For my upcoming appearance on Valley Dish, I was asked to create a dish out of 5 ingredients that a viewer had suggested. That sounded like fun, and it was, but it wasn’t exactly what I would consider 5 ingredients. I was emailed the list from the program producer, Cassie, as follows:  Swordfish, Cherry Tomatoes, Risotto, Arugula, and Buffalo Mozzarella. Does anyone else see the problem here? The answer – risotto isn’t what one would consider an ingredient, but rather a dish that stands alone.

Risotto is a classic Italian dish consisting of rice cooked in broth. The broth is added slowly, so that the rice absorbs it completely, creating a creamy consistency. Parmesan cheese, butter, and onion are the classic additions.

Therefore, rice is the ingredient. Specifically a high-starch, medium to short-grain rice. The varieties of choice are Arborio, Baldo, Padano, Roma, Carnaroli, and Vialone Nano. Arborio is the most readily available, while Carnaroli and Vialone Nano are considered the best and not coincidentally the most expensive. Here is the recipe I created and will be making live on Valley Dish (NBC Channel 12) next week. Hope you’ll tune in (or TIVO it – as I TIVO absolutely everything I watch) at 3:30 on Tuesday, November 9th.

[Read more →]

I will be making this fall-inspired dinner for an upcoming Valley Dish program. It’s so difficult to even imagine beautiful, cool, crisp weather when it’s still 100+ degrees out there, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl has gotta do! To tell the truth what inspired me was a huge bag of carrots, from “you know where” in my fridge.  That said, I’ll be making a carrot soup too. In the recipe I suggest using purchased pre-julienned carrots for convenience; but feel free to peel, slice, and julienne your own – if you already have a bag of carrots hanging around at your house. By the way, I’ll be on Valley Dish tomorrow (9/30/10), where I will be judging a seafood cook-off instead of cooking! So if you have any desire to see me eat instead of cook, tune in at 3:30 PM, NBC channel 12.

[Read more →]

There is no recipe today. Sorry to disappoint, Sloane! But there are several links throughout this post to recipes that have previously appeared here…

This past Thursday I received some exciting news… one of my blog recipes will be featured in an upcoming cookbook! If you were one of the people who voted for my Martini Puffs to be included in the “Cocktails & Appetizers” section of the book… Thank You!

After I submitted the recipe, more than six months ago, I forgot about it. So this is a happy surprise. 

The book will be available on October 19, 2010. If you would like to pre-order a copy of the Foodista Best of Food Blogs Cookbook from Amazon you can do so by clicking THIS LINK. And no, sadly I do not get any $$ from the sales… it may be time to do a book of my own!

[Read more →]

I’ll be making this dish on Channel 12 Valley Dish on Wednesday, September 8th. I have just a few things to say about it; Delicious, Quick, Easy, and only 5 ingredients (not counting the spices, oil, and butter!) Make it, and thank me later!

[Read more →]

On Saturday, September 4th I will be doing a demonstration at Phoenix Cooks with Tram Mai. The segment will be filmed and shown on Channel 12 Valley Dish that Wednesday.  Tram and I will then cook a stuffed salmon to go along with this healthy side. The salmon recipe will follow tomorrow. In the meantime, if you want to come out to the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort & Spa and help support Phoenix Children’s Hospital, you can purchase tickets HERE. I’d love to see you there!

Of course, you’ve heard of and most likely eaten couscous before, but what about Israeli couscous? If not, use this recipe and give it a go. You can find Israeli, or pearl, couscous at Trader Joe’s in an 8-ounce package.

[Read more →]

A week from today, on Monday the 28th, I’ll be on Channel 12 NBC Valley Dish with Tram Mai, making this pasta for a 4th of July menu. Let me just tell you, it’s the smoked Gouda that makes this salad! Do not leave it out or substitute another cheese.

Just wish I could have thought of something blue to add to make it a true “red, white, and blue” independence salad. Let me know if you think of something (I will let you know that blueberries don’t cut it!). Until then, I suppose you can just serve it on a blue plate.

[Read more →]