From the category archives:

Fruit

Look: My Glazed Lemon Pound Cake Recipe Is Now An Illustration

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 This blogger is an artist with a delightful idea – draw high-quality illustrations of food bloggers’ recipes and post the art on her blog. Then, allow visitors to click to the source recipe. This is the work of the talented Lisa Orgler at The Lunchbox Project. Her artwork and products are available here on Etsy.  [...]

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Triple Citrus Cupcakes with Lime Glaze

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  Culinary throw-down: prepare a dessert elegant enough to complement friends’ upscale picnic contributions, portable, and cannot compete in flavor with the other two desserts: Larry’s Famous Brownies As Seen In Bon Appétit, plus a batch of caramel corn. The venue? A cemetery, but not to visit dearly departed. We were there to picnic and [...]

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Road Trip! U-Pick Strawberries in Carlsbad

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Our home in Westwood is at the north-west end of LA.  Cousins Nancy and John graciously hosted a family potluck at their home in Del Mar (North San Diego). That’s about a 2+hour drive IF no traffic. But since there ALWAYS IS traffic, we brought a big ice chest to keep our dishes cold. The [...]

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Strawberry Sour Cream Pie

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This pie was scrumdiddlyumptious. So much, in fact, that after Larry and I had our slices, I pawned the rest off on two neighbors’ households. It was TOO good and my fear was we’d eat it all. Larry wasn’t thrilled with this, scored one more slice, tucked it into the fridge and I bolted up [...]

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Namibia Sunset Orange Blossom Cake

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African sunsets go on forever; the sun drops behind the horizon quickly, then melts the sky into a full hour of magnificence. Considering there are no buildings to block the view, hundreds of miles of horizon can (and do) glow every night.

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Apple Cinnamon Brunch Braid

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What to do with the second half of my dessert dough from the King Arthur Flour baking demo? I did what they said, I froze it. And then I wanted to eat it. They taught us how to do this at the demo, too, so I made an apple filled braid. First, GO HERE for [...]

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My Time at IACP Was “Grape”

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DON’T FREAK – it’s not what it looks like.  Relax, and read my whole post about what this shot is about…  The International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) delivers some incredible opps for food insiders to hob-nob. It’s also a place where food providers (growers, manufacturers) pull out stops and wow us. Grapes from California always shine at [...]

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Easy Meyer Lemon Curd

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This is a sneaky trick. In my recipe binder there is a stunning magazine lemon custard recipe, which is baked in a water bath. I hadn’t made it yet, but had every intention. That is, until my friend Sandy told me her mother (native Californian, Meyer lemon tree owner) would make the lemon meringue recipe [...]

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Oven German Apple Pancake a la Dinah’s

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  Don’t let the photo scare you, this is Sunday brunch deliciousness in our home. My Westside neighbor and fellow food blogger, Erika Penzer Kerekes, tapped me for a classic Los Angeles recipe to feature in her cooking column on LA Examiner.com. Both her column on this national website and her personal blog In Erika’s [...]

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One Glass of Fresh Meyer Lemonade

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Too many lemons. I was telling friend, Sandy, about a giant box of Meyer lemons that showed up on my doorstep, catching me off guard. They were a prize for my Glazed Lemon Poundcake post; a recipe that totally ROCKS. Sandy grew up in Orange County (where orange and lemon groves took up the majority [...]

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Tangerine Tart with Cookie Crust

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For more than a decade, I’ve held onto this Sunset Magazine page. You see, the prolific tangerine tree that came with this house disappeared the day our yard was demo’d for landscaping. Waaaaa. Not sure why I never just bought fruit to make the tart; maybe I was insecure.

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Road Trip: On The Hunt for Ojai’s Pixie Tangerines

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My niece, Danielle, and I were on the hunt for the most awesome of snacks, the Pixie Tangerine. They only grow in Ojai. The region produces just enough to keep the best local stores and farmer’s markets supplied and then, BUMMER, gone ‘til next season (March through summer). If Larry and I hadn’t attended a [...]

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Thai Green Papaya Salad

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Well, I now know what to make when our four-couple Gourmet Club has a Thai themed dinner – this delicate Thai Green Papaya Salad. The dressing is Thai-YUM, I wanted to lick the bowl.  It’s a combo of textures, too – crunchy almonds to crisp cucumbers to soft papaya to airy fried rice sticks. But [...]

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Chicken Pumpkin Lemongrass Soup

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Things to cook with pumpkin were getting boring here, so I thought an Asian flavored soup would be different. I took this ‘n that from about five recipes and came up with a pot of flavorful, thick Chicken Pumpkin Lemongrass Soup. What gave it Asian oomph was fresh-cut lemongrass from our patio. And juice from [...]

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Pumpkin Pie Rice Pudding

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Making fresh pumpkin puree the other day yielded 9 cups of potential. Larry and I like pumpkin pie, but we also like rice pudding, so I googled around for recipes and ended up combining a few to produce this one. I suppose I could have tried to crockpot it. But even with constant stirring, this [...]

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Canned Pumpkin Shortage? Simple Steps to Make Fresh Pumpkin Puree

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About a month ago, I noticed my local store had no small cans of pumpkin. A week later, still none. Then Larry showed me a newspaper article about the super scary national canned pumpkin shortage. Another week later, friend Marlene circulated an email about it but by then, I had three “sugar pumpkins” to make [...]

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Greek Watermelon Salad with Feta Cheese and Olives

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The simplest salad of all presented at LA Greekfest’s cooking class: Watermelon Salad with Feta Cheese and Olives. Just those three ingredients, no dressing. Slices of watermelon, chilled Feta cheese in bite size pieces Black olives, Kalamata or others, pits removed, sliced Remove rind and seeds from melon.  Cut into triangular pieces.  Place on a [...]

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Light Pumpkin Custard

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Is it really, truly, finally Autumn? Gimme Pumpkin! Here is what’s so great about Light Pumpkin Custard… you can eat piles of it with little concern. The calorie intake is fairly low, your Vitamin A intake is sky high and you are enjoying one of the best holiday flavors ever (which then contributes to one’s [...]

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Pomegranate Popsicles

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The weather here today in LA is perfect.  Our Augusts are usually nicer than September as the beginning of school often coincides with a furnace-blast heat wave.  As kids, we had the double whammy of wool Catholic school uniforms and classrooms with no AC.  Brutal. To cool her kids, Mom froze cubes of cranberry juice [...]

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Blueberry Stuffed Apples in Pastry

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Naming this recipe was tricky; besides being stuffed with fresh blueberries and baked in flaky pastry, the apples are sweetened with Red Hot candies and pure maple syrup.  TMI for a recipe name, but Larry thought the Red Hots were a pretty good idea.  I like using up the second pie crust in the box, [...]

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