Tag Archives: delicious

On Summer Evenings

One of the things I adore the most about the summer months is just how simplistic it is throwing together “hors d’oeuvres” and calling/ texting up friends for a casual night of entertaining.

We try to fill our weekend summer evenings all gathered around the table with our little family and friends, a good bottle of vino, an assortment of cheeses, some meat, crackers, dips, fruit, nuts… you get the idea… We had a hoot arranging it on a great big ‘ol inherited Fiestawear platter dish or wooden cheese board that my grandfather made us. We light some votive candles and sit back enjoying good belly laughs while sharing stories and the music playing softly in the background. It’s a fun little tradition I hope we continue to uphold and bumblebee grows up remembering!

^ NEW FAVORITE TORTILA CHIP!! Spicy Sriracha soooo addicting!

Cheers summer weekends! Cheers!

Backpackbees

Unbeetable Valentine Cake

Any guesses what we’re hiding in our chocolate cake??

….No, it’s not arsenic. Ha-Ha! Geesh….

This chocolate cake features one-off the wall ingredient that makes it extremely moist. Yes, it literally melts in your mouth on contact.

So what is it?

Beets!

Yes, as in red beets

The chocolate in the cake hides the beet flavor amazingly well, you absolutely cannot taste even a faint flavor of a beet. Plus, we’ve got beets hiding out in our frosting too! O.M.G! Now that’s unbeetable, or unbeetlivable. Ha-Ha! I’ll stop while I’m ahead.

Beets are naturally a fall root veggie and were a staple at my grandparents dinner table quite frequently. Growing up in central Pennsylvania you could always count on someone bringing along pickled eggs and red beets. I feel like people either love or hate them, and unfortunately they often get labeled as tasting like dirt. I for one always enjoyed red beets, but never had the TRUE appreciation that I have for them now. Who would have guessed how versatile beets really are?!

Chocolate Beet Cake with Beet Cream Cheese Frosting
Makes one 8 or 9-inch layer cake
Originally adapted from Fine Cooking November 2001
I only slightly modified the recipe from Joy The Baker

For the Cake:
3 small-ish sized beets, unpeeled but trimmed of their greens
1 teaspoon safflower oil
6 ounces (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup unsweetened natural cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups buttermilk

For the Frosting:
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
8 ounces (1 brick) cream cheese, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons finely grated beets
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons milk, depending on desired consistency
1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
A pinch of salt

We really hope you give beets a chance and bake this little festive guy over the weekend! For the full baking directions pop on over to Joy The Baker’s Blog and show her a little love on Valentine’s Day too. Xoxo!

Backpackbees

#Therewillneverbeenoughtime

I’ll spend forever showing you how much you mean to me.

Vegan Rosemary chocolate chip cookies at 6am.
He adores them, and I adore him.

Backpackbees

Click, Ship & treat yourself!

     

 

Product Review: Artisana Raw 100% Organic Coconut butter

My grandparents will be the first to attest that I despised coconut anything growing up. Any cakes or baked goods with the flaky shreds of coconut I’d proclaim, “taste like soap.” Clueless where I came up with that one? Thank goodness our taste buds mature and develop with us into our adulthood. Fast forward to my adulthood and I couldn’t even image not liking the taste of coconut. Missing out on coconut cake, coconut frosting, piña-coladas, coconut water, coconut milk, the list goes on and on.

How about you, do you like coconut or coconut flavor?

So I came across a product on Amazon for raw coconut butter and after reading the reviews of so many happy owners we decided we wanted to give it a whirl too! Artisana Raw 100% Organic Coconut Butter, have you tried it yet? (GET ON THIS!)

image
(Photo taken with iPhone)

This is the moment I wish we had some smell-o-vision from my screen to yours. We opened the jar and immediately were reminded of a tropical island. No, not the super potent car air freshener that gives you a headache when you first open it and can taste it in your mouth. More like the coconut smell that transports me when I can close my eyes and almost feel a light sea breeze blowing while lounging on a tropical beach (it could just be our fan too). Regardless it’s certainly hard to fully describe in words how divine the smell is! Folks just trust us on this one.

When we first got our jar of coconut butter it was in solid form, however with the recent change in temperature it is a liquified butter that just like natural peanut butter can separate and just needs a good stir to eat.

So onto the taste…..drum roll please! We’d like to describe it to you as naturally sweet and packed full of incredible coconut flavor! We’re finding every excuse to slather or drizzle the stuff on our meals. Suchhhhh a delicious treat and it’s healthy too! Just like their product marketing states, no additives, only pure, unadulterated coconut!

This little butter babe has certainly jazzed up our breakfast routine and I don’t see us giving up on it anytime soon. Stay tuned for more featured debuts in our cooking and recipes.

Backpackbees

Click, Ship & treat yourself!

Delicious Post-op

What a delicious post-op we had this weekend in Gangnam. Surprisingly after living here over three years, we’ve never really ventured out in Gangnam. Kelsey met us before our eye appointment with plans to grab lunch together afterwards.

The weather was just beautiful! A perfect Spring day! After getting an all clear on both of our eyes we strolled around the main and back streets of Gangnam, with our shades on of course. There were just so many delicious choices! Eventually we settled on Indian.

Mano is an Indian restaurant with some Korean fusion. I think the photos below say it all. Spicy and delicious! We’d defiantly will go back in the near future for more. Plus I’m lusting over their collection of Le Creuset serving dishes. Just gorgeous! (On my wish list)

We had to take Kelsey to experience the cutesy Ann House Cafe. Her only request for this weekend was to enjoy Potbingsu before leaving on her holiday to Japan. We all ordered different versions of Potbingsu, butt spoons and all. Can you guess who ordered what?

Until our next post-op adventures.

Backpackbees

Directions:

Mano

By subway: Gangnam, outside Exit 4 of Sinnonhyun Station. The restaurant is on located on your left. 2F of 619-18 Yeoksam-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul

Phone Number: 02-568-2007.

Deliveries available: http://www.머노.com

Rainy With A Good Chance Of Meatloaf

Meatloaf… It’s one of those foods that you either absolutely love, or absolutely loath. There isn’t much argument in the middle. We just so happen to love the stuff! How about you? What are your feelings on meatloaf?

It’s Sunday, it’s been pouring rain for days. Actually, it’s been every day since we landed back in Korea from our world tour over the 4th.

I don’t know about you, but days and days of rain eventually get to me. I start craving comforting things. I start going into a sluggish, lounge around mood. Sometimes a craving happens and you just gotta roll with it. Sometimes it’s weird, sometimes it ends up being FABULOUS! Like the meatloaf I’m going to share with you all.

A little background on our meatloaf situation. We have only ventured away from Mr. B’s mom’s meatloaf recipe ONE time during our married life. BIG MISTAKE! It was icky, bland, gross. There are many other words I could go on using, but I think you get the point. Please also note this attempt was about three years ago or so. I guess you can say we were scarred. We continued to stick to the family meatloaf recipe ever since. Well, that is until now…thank you Eatliverun!

Kicked Up Turkey Meatloaf
(Taken and slightly adapted from Eatrunlive)

serves 6

Ingredients:

1 lb lean ground turkey

1 cup cooked black or green lentils (Don’t fear the lentils)

1 large carrot, diced

1 large onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 cups mushrooms, chopped

1 1/2 tsp worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup ketchup

1 tsp salt

1/2 T olive oil

1/4th tsp black pepper

3/4 cup panko breadcrumbs

1/3 cup milk

1 egg, slightly beaten

Glaze:

2 T ketchup

2 pads of butter

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the diced onions and saute for about six minutes, until soft and translucent. Add the carrot and garlic and cook for three minutes. Add the chopped mushroom and cook for another five minutes or so, until the mushroom has turned soft and all the veggies are nice and juicy.

Remove from heat and transfer to a large bowl. Add the cooked lentils, salt, pepper, worcestershire sauce and ketchup and mix well.

In a small bowl, combine the milk and panko bread crumbs. Let sit for three minutes so the breadcrumbs can absorb a little of the milk. Add to veggie mixture.

Add ground turkey and beaten egg and mix well. It’s easiest here to use your hands. Transfer to a greased loaf pan and press down to smooth top.

Spread the two pads of butter on the meatloaf top. Make a nice zigzag line of ketchup on top of the meatloaf. Cover with foil. Pop into the oven and Bake for 55 minutes or until a meat thermometer reads 165 degrees. We typically remove the foil off the top and then pop back into the oven for 15 more minutes. Enjoy!

Backpackbees