Chicken kapama (pronounced kah-pah-MAH) is a tomato-based Greek stew, often flavored with red wine and cinnamon. I first had this dish when I was on an excavation in Greece one summer during college. We were staying in a very small town with only about four hundred residents, and we ate lunch at the same restaurant every day. As you can imagine, eating from the same menu every day for six weeks ...
Archives for January 2014
Pineapple Macadamia Nut Cake with Key Lime Curd
Typically, I refer to the things I bake in mini loaf pans as “bread” – banana bread, pumpkin bread, zucchini bread, etc. Let’s be clear, though. This is cake, not bread. Deb of Smitten Kitchen recently discussed the fine line between, as she put it, “Acceptable for Breakfast” and “Nope, This Is Dessert,” and I defer to her judgment, especially in this case, given that this bread cake (ugh! I keep ...
Baked Polenta Fries with Chili BBQ Ranch Dressing
I’ve been to one Super Bowl party in my life. I’ve watched my fair share of college football, but that was because I was in the marching band, so I wasn’t tailgating or watching the game with a spread of snack foods and beer and such. Consequently, I don’t have much experience with football food, but even so, I KNOW these polenta fries would fit right in at a football party! They’re cheesy, salty, ...
Rosemary Wheat Crackers
I have to admit that when my parents first told me they had made homemade crackers, I rolled my eyes. I find store-bought crackers perfectly satisfactory, so I couldn’t imagine wanting to make my own, since I prefer to spend my time in the kitchen cooking and baking things that are significant improvements upon store-bought varieties, like homemade chocolate chip cookies. Over the holidays, ...
Dragon’s Loyalty Award
A few days ago Rebecca of Dorm Room Baker was kind enough to pass along the Dragon’s Loyalty Award to me. As far as I can tell from a bit of internet-sleuthing, this award is meant to recognize bloggers who have been really supportive of other blogs. Being a newbie-blogger in the company of thousands of others can be overwhelming, and finding a few friendly followers is incredibly encouraging – so ...
Three-Cheese Turkey Lasagna with Broccoli
It recently came to my attention that I had never made homemade lasagna, which seemed like a major oversight on my part – I’ve made a Greek version of lasagna, called pastitsio, which involves tubular pasta (similar to ziti) rather than flat noodles and a layer of béchamel sauce, but never a traditional lasagna! New Year’s Eve this past year was as good a time as any for lasagna, I decided, since ...
Mexican Tamales Part II: Additional Notes
While I was at home in California over the holidays, where it was a balmy sixty degrees or so and there was none of this polar vortex business going on (thanks for the fifteen below/thirty below with wind chill welcome back, Michigan!), where I could go to the grocery store and not find that everyone got there before I did and had already cleared out the store's supply of, well, pretty much ...
Grapefruit Pistachio French Macarons
Confession: it wasn’t until several months after I started making French macarons that I actually ate a French macaron from a bakery (and I still have yet to try one made in France!), so I can’t say that it was due to a craving that I decided to try making them. Well, I suppose it was a craving of sorts. A craving for a challenge, that is. ...